The two hour made for television movie "The Young Country" premiered on March 17,1970 as part of a special presentation for the Tuesday ABC Movie of the Week. This was also the pilot episode for the television series "Alias Smith and Jones". However,the TV-movie version was produced by Roy Huggins,the man who brought us "Maverick",and "The Fugitive",who also directed the original pilot movie. What made this TV-movie so very successful? Well,during the early part of the 1970's the only two westerns that were still on the air at the time,"Bonanza"(which was at its 11th season),and "Gunsmoke"(coming on its 16th season),the legends of the genre,were teering on their ancient last legs,but with a few more seasons to be squeezed out of them. Also to point out at the height of the show's popularity,"Alias Smith and Jones" was TV's desperate attempt to save the television western,which was at the age of the dinosaur at the time. At the time the TV-movie came out in 1970,a little more than a year after the release of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid",and that's hardly coincidental.
The TV-Movie and the series was undoubtedly an attempt by network executives at ABC and studio executives at Universal to cash in on the success of the Paul Newman-Robert Redford megahit,which was a huge box office success in 1969. The other part that made this so successful was that the series "Alias Smith and Jones" was made in the same spirit as with many other TV shows with the same premise,like "Maverick", "The Fugitive", "Run For Your Life",and "Renegade"(which were produced by Roy Huggins)where the stories focus on men on the run who went crisscrossing America from one place to another while getting involved with the people they meet. The TV-Movie,produced and directed by Huggins,had the same premise.....two men who were on the run and were guilty for the crimes they committed,and were given pardon for all the wrong they done. The TV-Movie version starred Pete Duel as Smith and Roger Davis(who would eventually come back to Alias Smith & Jones in the show's second season) after the sudden death of actor Pete Duel,who in turn was the show's narrator at the beginning of the series during Season 1)as Foster Moody. Also starring here are actress Joan Hackett as Clementine Hale(who was in the pilot episode,but during Season 1 was played by Sally Field in a two-part episode of the series) and Oscar winning actor Walter Brennan as Sheriff Fenley. The TV-Movie was a surprise hit in the Nielsen ratings and on the strength of the pilot,was made into a weekly which premiered on ABC as "Alias Smith and Jones" on January 21,1971 as a midseason replacement series which produced 50 episodes and was placed on ABC's Thursday night schedule until January 13,1973.
