User Reviews

Invigorating yarn manages big scale on a limited budget, reflecting the expertise of director William Witney, a past master at making chicken salad out of questionable ingredients. The plot is baldly lifted from Kipling's Captains Courageous, except that the rich, spoiled, bad boy overdue for tough love is changed to a rich, spoiled, very bad man. Plutocrat Paul Leland (played by Linden Chiles) wallows in his cocoon of privilege, cozily certain that the world is for sale and he's got the price. Script's hopeful contention that hard knocks can awaken the humanity in even a snob as big as Leland is at least a thought worth holding. Gregarious Slim Pickens, long before his famous campfire scene in "Blazing Saddles," plays the cattle drive cook.

The acting was so great, I did not want it to end. It was well written, well acted and entertaining. It may be a plot from a prior movie, but so what.

This version is with these special actors and it was enjoyable.

At the beginning this Virginian episode does seem like shamelessly lifting the plot from Captains Courageous. But Linden Chiles is no juvenile like Freddie Bartholomew. He's a grown up who inherited his money and never did a lick of physical work.

Not until his mistress Barbara Werle threw him off the back of his private railroad car and he's found by the The Virginian and the rest of the Shiloh Ranch cowboys who are making a drive to Seattle to sell their cattle in that market.

It's work or starve and Chiles is not as receptive as Bartholomew. In fact his downright selfishness causes a lot of problems on the drive. Him and James Drury finally come to blows.

Look for a very nice performance by Slim Pickens as the drive cook as Chiles becomes his cook's louse. Like Mushy to Wishbone on Rawhide.

Some of us grow up late, but nice to see we do grow up.

First came Captains Courageous (1937) with Spencer Tracy and Freddy Bartholomew, then Cattle Drive (1951) with Joel McCrea and Dean Stockwell, finally this poor adaption in 1964 as an episode of The Virginian. All follow the same theme...rich person is lost during a trip (Freddy falls off a boat, Dean falls off of a train, and Linden Chiles is pushed off a train). Watch the first two renditions and skip the episode of The Virginian.