The Virginian

With no less than the presidential imprimatur of Theodore Roosevelt on the novel by his good friend Owen Wister, many consider The Virginian to be the first realistic western novel. Before that the rather discredited prose of people like Ned Buntline dominated the field and none of their 'literature' survives today.

This television series takes the basic characters of The Virginian, Trampas, Steve, and Molly Wood from the novel and makes them all friends. The guys are foreman and his two best buddies all working at Shiloh Ranch. They're played by James Drury, Doug McClure, and Gary Clarke. Pippa Scott plays Molly Wood, school teacher in the novel, but in the TV series newspaper editor of the Medicine Bow periodical. The Shiloh ranch is owned by Judge Garth who lives there with his daughter Roberta Shore.

That's how it started but regulars came and went. The Shiloh ranch changed hands first to John McIntire and his real life wife Jeanette Nolan. Later on it went to Stewart Granger and the series changed its name to Men Of Shiloh as the women regulars were all eliminated. And we never learned what The Virginian's real name was or his past as in the novel.

The Virginian had the distinction of being the first 90 minute series on television. It must have been grueling shoot, it's like shooting several feature films in a year. It also had some name guest stars like that other series from Revue Productions Wagon Train.

The Virginian ran for 9 seasons before NBC pulled the plug. But in that time it gave us good and memorable television western shows.

This was an ambitious series, which made use of first class actors and magnificent location photography.

In its early years the series had five main characters: Judge Garth, owner of Shiloh, a great cattle ranch in Wyoming; his innocent young daughter Betsy; the Virginian, his heroic foreman; and two likeable ranch hands, Trampas and Steve. The relationships between these five, as they were developed and tested, provided the most affecting and amusing moments.

The series gave us strong, intelligent stories, which could be tragic or light-hearted, and often the direction was imaginative, sometimes even poetic. Issues such as injustice through prejudice, individual responsibility and the necessity for compromise were explored, and 'Shiloh' came to stand for the virtues of tolerance, compassion, courage and optimism. Compared with earlier Western series, The Virginian was amazingly deep yet subtle.

As the series ran on over the years it created a hopeful vision of a society slowly progressing towards order and peace.

Good series, it's sad it's been kinda forgotten. It's easy to write it off as another 'Bonanza' knockoff-Big Valley, High Chapperell, for example, but it wasn't that, not at all. In one episode, you get to see Lee J Cobb, Richard Anderson, Harry Morgan, Arthur Hunnicutt and a host of other Very familiar character actors doing the 'Stagecoach' routine-while McClure, Drury and co weren't exactly chopped liver either.

It had heart, it was well acted and was on forever. I would watch this over Bonanza any day.

*** outta ****

Compared to other Westerns, the Virginian was a latecomer to British television screens. Preceding it from the late 1950s were Cheyenne, Wagon Train, Rawhide and the like. Initially, all were shown in black and white on very small screens. Although the Virginian was novel in being 75 minutes long and in colour, the team which created it seems to have come from the former era. Blips overlooked in monochrome stand out like a sore thumb in colour, particularly now, when played on the huge screens we have in our homes.

Watching Seasons 3 and 4 (on DVD) for the first time in 50 years, and catching up on Seasons 1 and 2 on Freeview, I was intrigued by the contradictions. There was the ambitious use of acting royalty like Bette Davis and George C Scott, and yet for interior shots, the scenes of the outside world as seen through open doorways, are painted backdrops which look amateurish.

Given my love of Westerns, it's surprising just how unengaged I was initially with the Shiloh regulars. Betsy was close to my age at the time but I didn't identify with her at all. It's like when you read a novel - there needs to be a character with whom you can empathise, one you trust to lead you into the story. For me, that did not happen until Season 3 when Emmett Ryker rode into town. The experience was like Guy Fawkes night, the fireworks those of wit and humour. It was such a clever script. In those days, with no internet to consult, there was no way of finding out if he would appear the following week. There were no video recorders either so if you missed a programme that was it - gone. But he did become a regular, and therefore so did I.

Why Ryker? Sure, Clu Gulager is easy on the eye, but being handsome doesn't necessarily make a person or a character attractive. He was intriguing. Ryker's awkward childhood, his chequered history, are laid bare in that first episode, giving his character instant depth. You understand how his experiences have sharpened his survival instincts and his intellect. At a turning point in his life, he hits the ground running, inner conflict hot wired into him. The mystery is not who he was in the past but who he is going to become in the future as he takes on the role of upholding the law he was sometimes on the wrong side of. In later episodes the scriptwriters refrained from throwing him into doomed love affairs like the ones Doug McClure and James Drury had to endure, which was another huge plus.

With Gulager driving the performance, Ryker is never, ever boring. He had two good years on the Virginian, but then when Season 5 opened on tv, he just wasn't there. For weeks and weeks he was a no show. My interest in watching dwindled and I sought solace with Manolito Montoya over at the High Chaparral. I never went back. Until now.

Watching The Virginian episodes again, knowing how little time the actors and production team were given to create them, it's truly amazing what they managed to achieve. Season 3 in particular is very good. But the gruelling schedule must have taken a toll because from Season 4 onwards, the turnover of regular cast members is constant. Some long absences and disappearances remain unexplained which, with time invested following the story arcs of certain characters, can be frustrating for the viewer. If you've never see the Virginian before, you could do worse than start with Season 3 and see where you want to go from there.

Quite simply, I grew up watching 'The Virginian' and I have to thank it, for being very watchable, and mainly for keeping my attention span for 90 minutes. This was unheard of for a show in those days. It led me to becoming an avid cinema addict, for which I am eternally grateful. Probably my favourite western series, although 'Alias Smith and Jones' threatened to equal it until Pete Duell committed suicide. Great memories, from the early days of colour and BBC2, I believe...