Customer Reviews

Lassie: Best of Jeff's Collie

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The early LASSIE episodes were quite different in flavor from the later ones, as Lassie was more of a smart real dog rather than a canine angel in disguise. These are three good episodes, including the series premiere, "Inheritance," in which 9-year-old Jeff Miller is willed Lassie by a deceased neighbor. The nice part is that Lassie doesn't "take" to Jeff immediately and that he has to learn to let her love him, rather than trying to make her love him. "Lassie's Pups" is the dramatic story of Jeff's odyssey to get help when Lassie seems in danger while having puppies. "Transition" is the last episode the Miller family appeared in; an orphan named Timmy :-) that they have been fostering all summer runs away when the Millers have to give up the farm after Gramps' death and he thinks he must go back to his elderly guardians. Introduced are the original actors who played Timmy's parents, Cloris Leachman and Jon Shepodd.

I was born twenty years after the three episodes you'll find on this DVD set. I grew up with the 'Timmy' episodes of LASSIE on Nickelodeon, but I longed to see the 'Jeff' episodes which I knew about via my parents' recollections of the show. I was finally able to catch JEFF'S COLLIE on Animal Planet in 1997. However, that network didn't run (to my knowledge) the pivotal episode, "The Transition"--included on this 3-episode set--in which the Jeff era gave way to the Timmy era. Jon Provost and Tommy Rettig together! I was finally able to see this milestone in the LASSIE TV universe thanks to this release.

If you're into LASSIE, TV or otherwise, and especially the Tommy Rettig ('Jeff') era, this is an excellent set to start with, including the show's premiere episode from 1954, "The Inheritance." Sandwiched in the middle is "Lassie's Pups," famous for Jeff's harrowing nighttime journey to the vet's office, and "The Transition" rounds out the set. The quality of the transfer is as good as anything I've seen, even though the original copies of these shows were not in the best of wear when they were copied. These early episodes are a bit clunky at times, storywise, yet they're endearing too thanks to strong performances by Jan Clayton, George Cleveland, and especially Tommy Rettig, a truly gifted child actor fifty years ago or today. If you're going to collect LASSIE's TV adventures, here's where you want to start.

Why can't they write scripts like these anymore? Jeff's collie was orinally aired as "lassie" in the mid 1950's and was renamed when timmy took over after 3-4 years. It is easily the best lassie shows with very professional actors/actresses and well written scripts. This was one of the first shows produced for the newest invention of the 1950's - T.V.

This DVD vaguely introduces the cast and then the final show together and a show with the pups. However, what they really need is to release all the shows on DVD (there are about 100 or so).

Anyway, Jeff's collie is far superior to the timmy and lassie episodes although there were some good ones of timmy too. Jeff, Porky, Gramps seemed real. Jan Clayton is more sexy too.

Jeff's Collie, what a journey to 50's America life. Different from the latter "Timmy Episodes" this series were so real and so down to earth. Lassie wasn't constantly "discovering dinamite" nor "saving the whole community" but it was a truly believable intelligent dog that was easy to love. Tommy Rettig did not portray a plastic cute owner like Timmy, (Sorry Timmy fans) but a real 12th year-old fatherless farm boy who filled the gap of his father's absence with the love of his pet. Wonderful series.

The DVD mentioned is a great "starting taste" but it does not include the best episodes. Who does one contact to vote or put in a word for the release of SEASON BOX SETS of JEFF'S COLLIE? I think these episodes are a part of America's Television History and it would be a terrible loss to let them dissapear.

I am glad to see others here who understand how transcendent this program was. I watched Lassie as a kid during the Timmy era and I liked it but it wasn't my favorite show - more nostalgia than anything else. The Rettig era was before my time. When Animal Planet showed this time period, I took the opportunity to watch it and was totally blown away. I was watching a series right out of the pages of William Saroyan or Lee Harper (To Kill A Mockingbird). The writing, direction, character ensemble, and plots were very, very different from Timmy and Lassie. I could see how the charm and appeal of this series began, and was never acheived again. Subtle elements of progressivism and the human experience, maybe due in part to Sheldon Leonard (who later interjected some of these same elements into the early episodes of The Andy Griffith Show and I Spy) and a female writer, who's name I don't remember, and others who contributed to it, made it stand out like some other shows of the early era of T.V., before the corporate agendists got their mitts on it. I agree with another contributer here; they need to re-release the whole series of the Rettig era show.

Jeff's Collie is by far the best collection of Lassie TV available on DVD. I loved this show and used to watch it rerunning on Discovery Kids until some morons decided to take it off the air. Some of the episodes are a bit long in the tooth, yet they are very, very timely as well. Lassie is superior in every way to the current Lassie--hard to say how--he just is. Tommy Rettig and Jan Clayton are excellent as is George Cleveland. Everyone is long dead now, except Porky. This is a real treat and delightful viewing--some of today's kids don't like black and white--they are so used to color, but somehow black and white seems to fit here. Superior.

The Tommy Rettig "Lassie" delighted me tremendously as a young boy, and I love seeing these shows after 50 years. I recalled a sense of true, non-Hollywood-gloss reality about the way the farm looked, the way Jeff's mother (Jan Clayton) looked and spoke, and the way Jeff reacted like a real.

That's all here in this CD, but because the three shows are untypical -- Jeff gets Lassie, Jeff loses the farm, and a show where Lassie, sick, just lies down for 25 minutes, I don't feel the life of the farm and of being young and adventurous, the way the series moved me every usually Sunday night.

So, this a nice package. But I wish we could have more of the regular drama of a great kid, a great life, and a great dog.

This DVD contains an early episode of the 1954 series starring Tommy Rettig, where Lassie is awarded to the boy after a relative dies. It also contains the transition episode aired in 1957 where an aging Rettig is replaced with tiny Jon Provost. Gramps has died, Ellen decides to move herself and her son to Capital City to teach music, and lease the farm to the Martins, who have adopted a little orphan boy. The dog decides what she wants to do in this episode as she does in the first episode. The actors in the first post-transitional season who play Timmy's parents are abruptly replaced without explanation. For those who remember this series from their early baby boomer years, the DVD brings back memories. Solid American virtue is everywhere to be found.

I found this DVD to be very interesting. I would love to have a dog that could do as many tricks as Lassie. This is a good DVD for those who want a show about drama, as well as those who just like dogs. I started watching this show (well at least the reruns of this show) earlier this year on a channel called WHT and automatically fell in love. This DVD is a good way to be able to see eposides that maybe you've never seen before.They don't play Jeff's Collie on WHT anymore,but with this DVD you can still watch it. This is a good DVD to get because besides the fact that Lassie does all kinds of tricks,it's also a chance to see a good, old-fashioned bond between a boy and his dog.
Also Tommy Rettig (Jeff Miller)is soooo cute!!!!!!!!!

We first saw the Jeff's Collie Lassie series in late 1959 on ABQ channel 2 from Brisbane. The picture and sound quality from the original film was superb on our then Philips Magnalux TV.....so after all those years playing the DVD and displaying it on our Samsung LCD (we now live in Java Indonesia), the results technically were a little dissapointing. Picture quality even though it is NTSC on this DVD is "muddy" and the sound has not been corrected. There is an annoying audio "hum"! Surely there'd be plenty of good film copies around as this first Lassie TV series shot originally on 35 mm film was distributed to TV stations all over the world....and the audio could quite easily be restored before the film transfer is made. So how about it? Please do transfer other episodes of this Historic Series to DVD....and surely you can fit in excess of 3 episodes onto a double layer DVD?
Tommy Rettig....already was an experienced actor in major films...he'd appeared with Marilyn Monroe in "River of No Return" and before he died in 1996 Tommy was a pioneer of computer programming.
Lassie.....we had quite a chuckle in one of those 3 episodes to see several puppies "planted" on "Lassie" knowing full well "she was a he"...but we believed it all back then and still enjoy the series today. I'll be looking around for further classic series on DVD.....Sunset Strip will be one....but please if there's more to come of this first Lassie Series "Just Holler"! It will then delight a whole new generation!!!
Stephen Fleay
former BBC CBS correspondent Java Indonesia