The Sister Rita Story Mar 25, 1959
The Matthew Lowry Story Apr 1, 1959
The Swift Cloud Story Apr 8, 1959
The Vincent Eaglewood Story Apr 15, 1959
In the first one, Flint comes across a wagon with three nuns in it who have come to 'serve' the Indians who are very naïve about their task, (a Priest accompanied them until he was killed). But they insist their faith will carry them through. Flint rides with them to get them to the wagon train in case prayers are not enough. Vera Miles is Sister Rita, who recently joined the order and seems to be falling for Flint. Francis Bavier, (soon to be Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show), is an older nun who gets captured by the Indians. There's a strange scene in which Rita and Flint see her after the capture and think she's dead. Flint says "I hope so", suggesting that she's been visibly tortured. But she later appears, still alive but dying as if from a heart attack but otherwise unmolested. I suspect a change in the script to a gentler demise but the editor didn't remove the brief earlier scene suggesting otherwise.
Keeping up the religious theme, Richard Anderson plays a Quaker, (Lowry) who lost an arm during the war caring for the wounded, (he got gangrene from a patient). There's always a querulous member of the train who makes trouble but none are quiet as bad as Jed Otis, (John Pickard), who wants to fight the one-armed Quaker in the very first scene because he's "sick of those 'thees and thows'. He also thinks he a rival for the affections of Dorothy Provine, playing a slutty woman Lowry has no interest in who has been flirting with him. The train has to go through a narrow canyon when they encounter a wagon where people have been stricken with cholera. It's too narrow for the train to turn around. Otis' boorish solution it to "burn them out". Lowry crosses over to help, saying that there's two kinds of cholera and this might be the kind that isn't contagious. Otis actually convinces some of the train members to join him in a mutiny. The show ends with an amazing engineering feat: they climb a cliff and hoist the wagons up to the top of the canyon, which, (turning out to be a flat movie set), allows them to mover on normally. Than why did they enter the canyon to begin with? How did their belongings stay in the wagons as they were being pulled up the sides of the canyon? If they unloaded the wagons first, how did they get the belongings up the canyon walls?
There are items in the trivia and 'goofs' about the woman who appears at the beginning, calling for help that Flint somehow misses in an early scene. It says she never reappears. Yet, she's obviously the woman we see when the train encounters the diseased wagon, who then falls for Lowry. It may be another example of bad editing: the first scene plays no role in the story and could have been cut out.
Swift Cloud (Rafael Campos, who is excellent) is the son of an Indian Chief who gets wounded in an encounter with the wagon train. Major Adams convinces that he can be cured of the resulting limp if they can take him to a doctor in Sacramento. Swift Cloud is suspicious of everyone on the train except a boy his age, (played Johnny Washhbrook of My friend Flicka). Meanwhile a group of Comancheros decide they want Swift Cloud. This week's trouble-maker is Alan Baxter as a former Confederate officer who still wears his uniform and insists on military aggression as the solution to everything.
Vincent Eaglewood is basically Mr. Peppers out west. Wally Cox plays a school teacher who joins the train and holds classes for the children, (and Charley Wooster, who enjoys a book of poetry which he can't read because he likes the pictures). Vincent gets in trouble for various scientific demonstrations that go wrong but winds up dueling with the medicine man of a local Indian tribe and winds up with the job himself.
In the first one, Flint comes across a wagon with three nuns in it who have come to 'serve' the Indians who are very naïve about their task, (a Priest accompanied them until he was killed). But they insist their faith will carry them through. Flint rides with them to get them to the wagon train in case prayers are not enough. Vera Miles is Sister Rita, who recently joined the order and seems to be falling for Flint. Francis Bavier, (soon to be Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show), is an older nun who gets captured by the Indians. There's a strange scene in which Rita and Flint see her after the capture and think she's dead. Flint says "I hope so", suggesting that she's been visibly tortured. But she later appears, still alive but dying as if from a heart attack but otherwise unmolested. I suspect a change in the script to a gentler demise but the editor didn't remove the brief earlier scene suggesting otherwise.
Keeping up the religious theme, Richard Anderson plays a Quaker, (Lowry) who lost an arm during the war caring for the wounded, (he got gangrene from a patient). There's always a querulous member of the train who makes trouble but none are quiet as bad as Jed Otis, (John Pickard), who wants to fight the one-armed Quaker in the very first scene because he's "sick of those 'thees and thows'. He also thinks he a rival for the affections of Dorothy Provine, playing a slutty woman Lowry has no interest in who has been flirting with him. The train has to go through a narrow canyon when they encounter a wagon where people have been stricken with cholera. It's too narrow for the train to turn around. Otis' boorish solution it to "burn them out". Lowry crosses over to help, saying that there's two kinds of cholera and this might be the kind that isn't contagious. Otis actually convinces some of the train members to join him in a mutiny. The show ends with an amazing engineering feat: they climb a cliff and hoist the wagons up to the top of the canyon, which, (turning out to be a flat movie set), allows them to mover on normally. Than why did they enter the canyon to begin with? How did their belongings stay in the wagons as they were being pulled up the sides of the canyon? If they unloaded the wagons first, how did they get the belongings up the canyon walls?
There are items in the trivia and 'goofs' about the woman who appears at the beginning, calling for help that Flint somehow misses in an early scene. It says she never reappears. Yet, she's obviously the woman we see when the train encounters the diseased wagon, who then falls for Lowry. It may be another example of bad editing: the first scene plays no role in the story and could have been cut out.
Swift Cloud (Rafael Campos, who is excellent) is the son of an Indian Chief who gets wounded in an encounter with the wagon train. Major Adams convinces that he can be cured of the resulting limp if they can take him to a doctor in Sacramento. Swift Cloud is suspicious of everyone on the train except a boy his age, (played Johnny Washhbrook of My friend Flicka). Meanwhile a group of Comancheros decide they want Swift Cloud. This week's trouble-maker is Alan Baxter as a former Confederate officer who still wears his uniform and insists on military aggression as the solution to everything.
Vincent Eaglewood is basically Mr. Peppers out west. Wally Cox plays a school teacher who joins the train and holds classes for the children, (and Charley Wooster, who enjoys a book of poetry which he can't read because he likes the pictures). Vincent gets in trouble for various scientific demonstrations that go wrong but winds up dueling with the medicine man of a local Indian tribe and winds up with the job himself.