Rawhide: Season 1

This seminal television Western was synonymous for two things: the rousing theme tune and a young actor called Clint Eastwood who played the part of Rowdy Yates.

As Frankie Laine belted out the classic lyrics "Move 'em on, head 'em up, head 'em up, move 'em on, move 'em on, head 'em up, Rawhide!", US families settled down in the late 1950s to a plethora of tales of the old West. Maverick, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train and Have Gun Will Travel jostled for superiority but the winner over time was Rawhide, the tale of tough trail boss Gil Favor (Eric Fleming) and his crew who, in the 1860s, set about taking a large herd of cattle cross-country from Northern Texas to Kansas City where they would be sold. However, as you can probably imagine, the trail is a thorny one and they are frequently beset by a combination of poachers, disease and bandits.

This 22-episode first season of Favor's adventures were loosely based on the diary of real-life trail boss George C Duffield, which series producer Charles Marquis Warren purloined many storylines from. Eastwood shows little of the potential that he would bring to such seminal spaghetti westerns as A Fistful Of Dollars in years to come, though there are some obviously ground-breaking moments in just the first episode alone where a prison wagon of varmints is being transported cross-country - the most notorious of their number being a woman who gets slapped in the face by her captors at the first opportunity.

The special guests that would pepper the show through its eight seasons were as diverse as Leslie Nielsen, Lon Chaney Jr, Charles Bronson and Barbara Stanwyck, but it is the launching of Clint that people will remember the series for.

This first season looks excellent for a show over 50 years old and, whilst previous releases have been available in Europe, it’s good to see an old show getting such an appealing release; though your enjoyment of it will be dictated by how much of the old West filmed on similar locations you can stomach. There are some great continuity gaffes too, with Favor often seen sporting Wrangler jeans, not available for nearly another 100 years!



Released on DVD on 15th November 2010 by Revelation Films Ltd.

> Buy the boxset on Amazon.

Reviewed by Simon Cole.