markmelsh

Very cheap. The episode devoted to TV Westerns was particularly offensive in many ways to me, since this is my favorite genre in films and TV. Focusing around 50 minutes on only five different shows disappointed me. No mention of Have Gun-Will Travel, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Cheyenne, or Death Valley Days, which aired for 18 seasons. I did enjoy seeing the interviews, so that was nice. Due to the budget and lack of money for music royalty payments, none of the great themes from any of the featured five shows were allowed to be heard. There were terrible slow-mo interludes showing Western "action" using footage that looked like actors in a local Tombstone "O. K. Corral" re-enactment. Really cheap. I have seen other episodes of this series and believe that given their low spending allowance, producers should have taken a different approach. This is way too cheap for PBS, or is it? My two favorite genres are westerns and documentaries. Bummed me two times now, I've gone away.

As a portrait of two dogs living their full lives on the streets of Russia, Space Dogs works remarkably: it is direct, it puts itself at the level of its portrayed and prefers to always stay with the truth rather than with the lie, no matter how gruesome it may be. As an allegory of a communist past, it ends up being lost: the archive material is not enough and the tenuous thread that unites both narratives feels forced.

I found this to be a routinely different kind of Western. All of the action takes place outdoors in beautiful, majestic locations in Utah and Arizona. Mona Freeman is dreamy! What a woman. Speaking of dreamy, Judy Strangis is in this but as a child, and a sort of weird-looking kid. She grew up to be the gorgeous co-ed in Room 222. Overall a very good cast for a B-western. Extra credit for the soundtrack, the familiar Western melody that repeats throughout the film, and the//haunting, occasionally inspiring vocals of the Roger Wagner Chorale, best known for the most popular version of the Christmas carol The Little Drummer Boy.