All 22 episodes of Rawhide's 1959 first season have been rounded up and moved out on DVD. Television's fourth-longest-running Western, and one of its best (if only for that classic theme song yee-hawed by booming baritone Frankie Laine) is of more than mere pop culture interest as the series that put Clint Eastwood on the map. Based on the 1955 film Cattle Drive, Borden Chase' novel The Chisholm Trail (which also inspired Red River), and actual cattle drive diaries, Rawhide offers an authentic, gritty look at the life of “drovers”—men who ride thousands of “bone-weary miles” and are “always a long way from nowhere,” while constantly being on the lookout for “trouble known and unknown.” Trail boss Gil Favor (Eric Fleming) sets the stage for each episode, which blends traditional Western action with human interest stories. Favor and his men—most notably Rowdy Yates (a young and lean Eastwood), whom he's mentoring—have a knack for “interfering with something that ain't none of your business,” as in the first episode, “Incident of the Tumbleweed Wagon,” in which Favor and Yates agree to deliver a wagonload of “murderers, deserters, and rustlers” to their trials, not knowing that a ravishing female prisoner (“Oh, mama,” yells one of Favor's men, “tell me how I get thrown in prison”) is the girlfriend of the gang leader hot on the wagon's trail. Favor is all about “hard work, doin' without, discipline and loyalty,” and he's not afraid to make the tough life or death decisions: in “Incident of the Widowed Dove,” for example, a young drover named Boston drowns in the wake of Favor's attempts to save scattering cattle (“I can be wrong,” Favor tells his disgruntled men). In the same episode, Favor frames Rowdy so he will be locked in jail, and kept away from a woman he deems a bad influence (turns out that the woman is married to the town's possessive and very jealous sheriff). In addition to such colorful characters as grizzled cook Wishbone (Paul Brinegar) and simple-headed Mushie (James Murdock), Rawhide corralled some of Hollywood's best character actors as guest stars. “Incident on the Edge of Madness” features Lon Chaney, Jr., basically reprising his signature role as Lennie in Of Mice and Men, as a trail hand who falls under the spell of a Southern aristocrat recruiting men to resurrect the fallen Confederacy. Rawhide is more than a relic from the golden age of TV westerns: superbly directed, written, and acted, it still rides tall in the saddle. Presented on an extra-less seven-disc set, this 1959 first season set is highly recommended. (D. Liebenson)
Rawhide: The Complete First Season
Paramount, 7 discs, 1,180 min., not rated, DVD: $54.99 October 2, 2006
Rawhide: The Complete First Season
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