The Virginian, the classic western series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, ran for 9 seasons and 249 75-minute episodes on U.S. network NBC from 1962 to 1971. It is available on DVD (All Zone) from Elephant Films, which first released the fully restored series in its entirety from 2014, including episodes never shown on French television.
Since May, Elephant makes The Virginian available again. Seasons 1 to 3 and Seasons 4 to 6 can be bought individually or in "Le Virginien - Intégrale Volume 1 - Saisons 1 à 3" and "Le Virginien - Intégrale Volume 2 - Saisons 4 à 6". Seasons 7 to 9 will follow in September.
The Virginian is set in Medicine Bow, Wyoming at the end of the 19th century and centered on the charismatic and enigmatic foreman of the Shiloh Ranch, only known as "The Virginian". The character was created by American writer Owen Wister (1860-1938) for his novel The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains,
first published in 1902. The book was adapted for the stage as of 1903
and four movies were made between 1914 and 1946. Wister's work raised
the interest of television in the late 1950s. At the suggestion of Frank Price, a story editor at Screen Gems (the TV subsidiary of Columbia Pictures), the company produced a 30-minute black and white pilot starring James Drury, a young actor from New York, as The Virginian. The pilot didn't sell and ended up as an episode of the anthology Decision, aired by NBC in summer 1958.
The
western genre was very popular on U.S. television in the 1950s and
1960s. The most watched show of the 1961-1962 season was NBC's western Wagon Train (1957-1965), produced by Revue Studios, the TV arm of MCA (Music Corporation of America). The second and third most watched programmes were westerns too: Bonanza (1959-1973), also on NBC, and Gunsmoke (1955-1975) on CBS. In 1961, Jennings Lang, vice president of distributor MCA TV, sold new and old episodes of Wagon Train to ABC for $20 million after NBC refused the price proposed by MCA at the end of their five-year contract. Lang gave the executives of NBC something bigger to replace America's #1 programme... The Virginian,
television's first 90-minute (with commercial breaks) western series.
He asked Frank Price, who joined Revue in 1959, to write the format.
The network greenlit the series, to be filmed in colour (1) on 35mm and without a pilot. NBC called The Virginian "the most ambitious and costly programming in network television history" and explained
that the 90 minutes allowed full character development and expanded
storytelling. They promised location shooting and "at least one major
guest star" every week (2). In March 1962 came the announcement that Broadway and film actor Lee J. Cobb (12 Angry Men, On the Waterfront) would play the key role of Judge Henry Garth,
the owner of the Shiloh Ranch. The rest of the main cast was revealed
in May: four years after the Screen Gems pilot, James Drury was chosen
to be The Virginian. Doug McClure (Overland Trail, Checkmate) got the role of Trampas, the fun-loving top hand of The Virginian. Gary Clarke (Michael Shayne) was given the part of Steve Hill, a young cowboy.
The other regular characters announced were newspaperwoman Molly Wood, portrayed by Pippa Scott, and Judge Garth's teenage daughter Betsy, played by Roberta Shore.
In May 1962, multiple production units started to work simultaneously
to provide the 30 75-minute episodes planned, on a schedule requiring to
make two or three episodes at the same
time. Hence the variable presence of the main characters from an episode
to another. With a budget estimated as much as $500,000 each on some episodes (3) and a duel vs Wagon Train on wednesdays to begin in fall 1962, failure was not an option. Long before the launch of The Virginian, NBC and Revue Studios grew dissatisfied with the work of executive producer Charles Marquis Warren on the series and decided to replace him.
MCA hired Roy Huggins
as a consultant to assess the problems of the episodes already
produced and fix them. Huggins was a novelist, scriptwriter and producer
who worked for Columbia, RKO, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox. For television, he created the hit series Cheyenne (1955-1962), Maverick (1957-1962) and 77 Sunset Strip (1958-1964) (4). Roy Huggins called Frank Price and Joel Rogosin to assist him and asked director Richard L. Bare
to shoot new scenes. Charles Marquis Warren remained credited until
mid-season, then Roy Huggins and Frank Price officially became executive
producer and producer (respectively). Hugh O'Brian, Ricardo Montalbán, George C. Scott, Bette Davis or Vera Miles guest starred in a first season which fulfilled its promises. The Virginian ranked #26 in the ratings, closely following Wagon Train which fell to the 25th position.
In 1962, MCA acquired record company Decca, the owner of Universal Pictures and Revue Studios was renamed Universal Television the following year (5). In May 1963, Lee J. Cobb, James Drury, Doug McClure, Gary Clarke and Roberta Shore began to work on the second season of The Virginian. New executive producer Frank Price signed freelance writer Cy Chermak as story editor. Chermak worked on The Dakotas (1963) and Bonanza (6). Produced by Jules Schermer and Winston Miller, season 2 aired from September 1963 to May 1964 on wednesdays. Wagon Train switched to colour and 90 minutes for its seventh season (7) but moved to mondays. In November 1963, NBC announced that Randy Boone would join the regular cast.
This young actor and singer from North Carolina, noticed in It's a
Man's World (1962-1963), first appeared as guitar playing ranch hand Randy Benton in the 20th episode of the second season.
An episode solved the absence of journalist Molly Wood since the middle of season 1 but without Pippa Scott. Ross Elliott recurred as Sheriff Mark Abbott from season 1 to season 7 (except for season 4). L.Q. Jones played Belden, a semi-regular character, from season 2 to the final season. Gena Rowlands, Robert Redford, Dick York, Yvonne DeCarlo, Jack Klugman, Peter Graves or Darren McGavin were some of the guest stars of a second season which ranked #17 in the ratings. Produced by Joel Rogosin, Winston Miller, Frank Telford, Cy Chermak and Gene L. Coon, season 3 aired on NBC from September 1964 to May 1965 every wednesdays. Frank Price remained the executive producer and hired actor Clu Gulager in May 1964 to play the regular role of Deputy Sheriff Emmett Ryker. Gulager previously played different roles in individual episodes of seasons 1 and 2 of The Virginian. Written by Frank Fenton, directed by Don Richardson and guest starring Leslie Nielsen, season 3's first episode (titled Ryker) introduces the new character.
Gary Clarke appeared in three episodes of the third season before the departure of Steve Hill from Shiloh Ranch after The Girl from Yesterday (episode 9). Those cast changes required a new title sequence, with an emphasis on action (at the request of Jennings Lang). Roberta Shore and Randy Boone were credited together on a shot from their singing duet of Dark Challenge, the second episode. Katherine Crawford, who guest stars in Felicity's Spring (episode 5), is the daughter of Roy Huggins and she married Frank Price in 1965. Written by John Holloway and directed by Don McDougall, Felicity's Spring was the highest rated episode of the season. Linden Chiles plays a spoiled rich young man in Big Image... Little Man (episode 7), penned by Frank Chase and Carey Wilber and helmed by movie serials veteran William Witney. A young Kurt Russell plays in A Father For Toby, written by True Boardman from a story by Tom Seller and directed by Alan Crossland, Jr.
Vera Miles and John Gavin, who both starred in Psycho (1960), play together in Portrait Of A Widow (the 13th episode). Penned by Cy Chermak and helmed by Don McDougall, Hideout (episode 18) is the remake of a western from Universal Pictures called Sierra (1950), itself adapted from Stuart Hardy's novel The Mountains Are My Kingdom (1937) by Edna Anhalt. In We've Lost a Train, Trampas is sent to Mexico to pick up a prized bull. While at Laredo, he meets a group of Texas Rangers. Written by Borden Chase and directed by Earl Bellamy, the 30th episode of this third season served as a backdoor pilot for the comedy western series Laredo. Produced by Universal Television, Laredo ran on NBC for 56 one-hour colour episodes from 1965 to 1967 and starred Neville Brand (Reese Bennett), William Smith (Joe Riley), Peter Brown (Chad Cooper) and Philip Carey as Captain Edward Parmalee (8).
Peter Brown and William Smith guest starred in different roles (for one episode each) during season 3 of The Virginian before the characters of Laredo were introduced in We've Lost a Train. Katharine Ross, Robert Culp, Steve Forrest, Barbara Eden, Rory Calhoun, Anne Francis, George Kennedy, Adam West or Ida Lupino are amongst the other guest stars of the season. Many familiar faces appear, such as Warren Stevens, Harold Gould, Slim Pickens, Peter Mark Richman, Robert Colbert, Bruce Dern, Tom Skeritt, Leonard Nimoy, etc. Even an unknown Raquel Welch as a saloon girl in episode 1. Actor Jerome Courtland, who co-stars in A Slight Case of Charity (episode 21), became an important television director. Other writers of this 1964-1965 season include Clair Huffaker, Mark Rodgers, Jean Holloway, Howard Browne, Gabrielle Upton and Gene L. Coon.
Bernard McEveety, Richard L. Bare, John Florea, Maury Geraghty, William Hale, Richard Benedict and Leon Benson are season 3's other directors. Percy Faith (Tammy Tell Me True) composed the theme music of The Virginian. Composers Sidney Fine, Leo Shuken, Jack Hayes, Lynn Murray, Harry Sukman and Van Cleave worked on the soundtrack. The third season of The Virginian ranked #22 in the ratings. Season 5 reached the Top 10. For its ninth season, the title changed for The Men from Shiloh and a new theme music was composed by Ennio Morricone. Only James Drury and Doug McClure stayed for the entire series. The success of The Virginian paved the way for more 90-minute programmes with continuing characters, like western Cimarron Strip (1967-1968) on CBS or NBC's The Name of the Game (1968-1971) and The NBC Mystery Movie (1971-1977).
The influence of The Virginian on the television industry didn't stop there. The good reception of the first 90-minute western series during the 1962-1963 season encouraged the emergence of the "Made-for-Television movie". In June 1963, MCA and NBC signed a deal to make two-hour colour feature films specifically for the network on a TV budget. The idea was inspired to Jennings Lang because networks competed to air theatrical films. The result was Project 120 and in november 1963 NBC announced the production of Johnny North, "television's first two-hour telefilm", starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson and John Cassavetes. Directed by Don Siegel, it was judged too violent by NBC and Universal released it theatrically as The Killers. Shown in October 1964, See How They Run became the first of those TV movies, folllowed by The Hanged Man in November of the same year.
After The Virginian, James Drury did some stage work and starred in the short-lived Firehouse
(1974). He guest starred in a lot of series and attended numerous
western festivals and conventions. Doug McClure rotated the lead with
Hugh O'Brian and Tony Franciosa in Search (1972-1973). He replaced Dennis Cole in Barbary Coast (1975-1976) after the pilot. The TV movie Satan's Triangle (1975), where he played alongside Kim Novak, is cult in France. His last regular role in a series was in Out of This World (1987-1991). On the big screen, McClure starred in The Land That Time Forgot (1974), At The Earth's Core (1976) or The People That Time Forgot (1977). MCA decided to release some episodes of The Virginian in theaters abroad to recoup some of the production costs (9). Selected episodes of The Virginian arrived on French television from 1966.
The
"Le Virginien - Intégrale Saison 3" 15-disc boxset from
Elephant Films contains the 30 episodes of season 3, in English with French subtitles as they were never shown on French TV. Bonus material is comprised of an interview with Peter Brown and the trailers of other titles from Elephant Films.
(1) Bonanza was the first TV western to be filmed in colour. Alex Quiroga, the colour consultant of Bonanza, and Robert Brower worked as consultants on The Virginian.
(2) NBC Press release (August 29, 1962).
(3) Sponsor (March 19, 1962).
(5) MCA formed Universal City Studios in 1964 to oversee its film and television activities.
(6) Later, Cy Chermak became the executive producer of Ironside (1967-1975) and CHiPs (1977-1983).
(7) Wagon Train reverted to black and white and 60 minutes for its eighth and final season.
(8) Robert Wolders and Claude Akins joined the regular cast for the second season.
(9) Ride a Dark Trail, the first episode of season 2, was edited with the 30th episode of the third season (We've Lost A Train, the pilot for Laredo) to form the movie Backtrack! (1969).
https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/mfp/5472590/serie-le-virginien?pid=10516775908 (Intégrale Saison 3)
https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/offer/buy/10516775909/le-virginien-volume-1-saisons-1-a-3.html (Intégrale Volume 1 - Saisons 1 à 3)
http://www.elephantfilms.com
See also:
