Rarest Westerns (6 Viewers)

[Neil Brock]

Criteria is: no broadcast airings anywhere in the videotaping era and very few, if any, episodes circulating on 16mm film.

Steve Donovan, Western Marshall
Wichita Town
Man From Blackhawk
Jefferson Drum
Legend of Jesse James
The Road West
The Cowboys
Dirty Sally
Frontier
Gunslinger
Pony Express
Redigo
Sara
Temple Houston
Union Pacific
Two Faces West

 

[JamesSmith]

Would like to get Dirty Sally and the Cowboys.

James

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Criteria is: no broadcast airings anywhere in the videotaping era and very few, if any, episodes circulating on 16mm film.

Steve Donovan, Western Marshall
Wichita Town
Man From Blackhawk
Jefferson Drum
Legend of Jesse James
The Road West
The Cowboys
Dirty Sally
Frontier
Gunslinger
Pony Express
Redigo
Sara
Temple Houston
Union Pacific
Two Faces West

Would like to get any or all of these...particularly Witchita Town, due to Joel McCrea being the star.

 

[Neil Brock]

Would like to get any or all of these...particularly Witchita Town, due to Joel McCrea being the star.

Timeless tried to get it for years but its owned by Walter Mirisch and he's very rich and it wasn't worth his while to bother with.

 

[Gary OS]

Timeless tried to get it for years but its owned by Walter Mirisch and he's very rich and it wasn't worth his while to bother with.

Yep. Timeless missing on Witchita Town & The Gray Ghost were two that really hurt, at least in my book. Missed for entirely different reasons that were basically out of their control, but still...

 

[Neil Brock]

Yep. Timeless missing on Witchita Town & The Gray Ghost were two that really hurt, at least in my book. Missed for entirely different reasons that were basically out of their control, but still...

At least a portion of Gray Ghost was aired on Star TV network during its short existence, as well as Hennesey, I'm Dickens He's Fenster and a few others. I consulted for the network and I'll take credit for having something to do with it. A shame that they only lasted around 4 months.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

I wonder if such TV shows as Best of the West (1981-82) and Barbary Coast (1975-76) count among these? I have the former on DVD.

~Ben

 

[Neil Brock]

I wonder if such TV shows as Best of the West (1981-82) and Barbary Coast (1975-76) count among these? I have the former on DVD.

~Ben

Both shows are on DVD.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Both shows are on DVD.

Yes, I know Barbary Coast is on DVD, too... just not in my arsenal.

~Ben

 

[rdimucci]

In early 1962, director Arthur Hiller filmed the pilot for a television series called Empire, which starred Richard Egan as "Jim Redigo," the foreman of a ranch in modern-day New Mexico. The series was picked up and began airing on NBC in September 1962, with co-stars Anne Seymour as the ranch owner, Terry Moore as her daughter, and Ryan O'Neal as her son. Charles Bronson joined the cast mid-way through the first season as a ranch hand. The pilot did not air as part of the series during the first season, and because of low ratings (the series aired opposite Red Skelton on CBS and Hawaiian Eye on ABC), the hour-long series was revised for season two. The series was shortened to half an hour, most of the cast except for Egan was jettisoned, and it was renamed Redigo. With the pilot episode now unusable for airing as part of the series, Columbia Pictures (parent of show producer Screen Gems) took the pilot, added footage from some of the later Charles Bronson episodes and released it as a theatrical feature overseas under the title THIS RUGGED LAND. The film is not available on home video.

 

[rdimucci]

The television show Temple Houston starred Jeffrey Hunter as a western lawyer and aired on NBC for a single season from 19 September 1963 to 10 September 1964. After the pilot for the series was filmed in March 1963, the main character's name was changed from "Timothy Higgins" to "Temple Houston," and additional changes in cast and characters were also made, which made the pilot unusable for airing in the series. Consequently, in December 1963, the pilot film, entitled THE MAN FROM GALVESTON, was released as a 57-minute theatrical feature in the U.S. by Warner Bros. David Buttolph scored the film.

The film is available on a made-on-demand DVD from the Warner Archive.
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Galvesto...pID=41CypgKQ1kL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

 

[rdimucci]

How rare is The Travels of Jamie McPheeters?

 

[rdimucci]

Universal took the initial two-part episode of the 1966-67 TV series The Road West (which starred Barry Sullivan, Kathryn Hays, and Andrew Prine) and combined it into the 1969 theatrical feature THIS SAVAGE LAND. George C. Scott was the guest star in these episodes. The feature opened in St. Louis on 23 July 1969. Leonard Rosenman did the score. The film is not available on home video.

 

[Neil Brock]

How rare is The Travels of Jamie McPheeters?

Not very. It aired weekly on TNT for years.

 

[Flashgear]

Interesting coincidence that The Travels of Jamie McPheeters is mentioned here today. Did anybody else see Jimmy Kimmel's talk show last night? He had Kurt Russell on as a guest and Russell told an interesting story about working with Charles Bronson on that series. A story about the (at first) strange and then touching reaction he got from Bronson when he gave him a birthday present while filming the show at MGM. After the strangely detached and disconcerting reaction from Bronson, the 12 year old Kurt Russell was called into Bronson's dressing room where Bronson told him shyly "no one had ever given him a birthday present before"! They later became fast friends, skate boarding all over the Culver City studios together on boards that Bronson had gotten for the two of them. You certainly don't see many references to TV shows of this vintage anymore on network TV, so this was a nice surprise...Kurt Russell must have loads of great stories to tell from his years as a kid working on Dick Powell Theater, Sam Benedict, Jamie McPheeters, The Virginian, Lost in Space, The Fugitive, Daniel Boone and the Disney movies...and of course his dad, Bing Russell, is in just about every second old show that I see.

Among the others, I commiserate with those who wish that Wichita Town had made it to DVD. Let's hope that WAC has Temple Houston in the cue sometime soon. Is Travels of Jamie McPheeters one of those MGM TV shows that are not owned by Warners now?

 

[Bob Gu]

MGM produced an extended feature version of the last aired episode of JAMIE McPHEETERS, in color. The series was in black and white. They filmed additional scenes with Bronson, Russell, and Susan Oliver, and brought in a different actor to play Jamie's father. Around the same time frame, MGM also, filmed two MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. first season episodes in color and extended them into feature films with extra filmed scenes.

The McPheeters feature is called GUNS OF DIABLO, released in 1965 and is shown on GRIT-TV often, and is probably on YouTube.

 

[rdimucci]

Is Travels of Jamie McPheeters one of those MGM TV shows that are not owned by Warners now?

The current copyright holder appears to be Turner Entertainment Company, so it should be available to Warners.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Randall - what a great story about Charles Bronson, being touched and somewhat nonplussed about receiving a birthday present from a young Kurt Russell. Would love to see The Travels of Jamie McPheeters some day, though it's probably a long shot that Warner Archive would release it.

Here's that Jimmy Kimmel clip with Kurt's story:



Thanks for the info re: Guns of Diablo, Bob. It is on YouTube, but in pretty poor quality (and stretched to 16:9 as well). Still, better than nothing...

 

[bmasters9]

The current copyright holder appears to be Turner Entertainment Company, so it should be available to Warners.

Which is how it was with that 1977-83 NBC police/action series CHiPs.

 

[phenri]

I'm sure the Travels of Jamie McPheeters has music clearance issues, since some of the Osmond children appear in the show and sing songs.