Customer Reviews

Ned Blessing: Return to Plum Creek

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NED BLESSING: RETURN TO PLUM CREEK is a made-for-tv movie from 1993 based upon, and featuring the cast of, the CBS series "Ned Blessing: The Story of My Life and Times." I don't remember the series at all, but now I'm kind of sorry I missed out on it. If the movie accurately represents the series, this one had a lot going for it.
Brad Johnson stars in the title role, the Boy Bandit of Texas who we first view as a one-armed old man in a jail cell, scratching out his memories on foolscap and chasing away a group of neighborhood boys who are playing on the gallows, his gallows, that shadow his barred windows. It's an intriguing opening.
Ned is returning to Plum Creek, Texas with a Mexican officer hard on his trail. Along with Ned is his friend Crencencio (Luis Avalos), a Sancho Panza type who is a healer (helpful, considering all the lead that flies in this 90-minute movie) and something of a mystic who speaks to the `grandfathers' that reside in a gourd he carries with him.
Ned returns to Plum Creek to find his father, who, coincidentally, is off looking for him. Before the first commercial break he's involved with a mule-shooting family, the Borgers, and the "off-breed" ex-slave couple they're trying to intimidate out of Texas. The Borgers, as the name hints at, control the town and have effectively cowed the inhabitants. Verlon Borger (Bill McKinney) is the patriarch, the widowed father of three sons. Verlon has a grisly sense of humor. The head of the last sheriff, a man who crossed Verlon, is floating in a pickle jar on a table in the saloon.
The town of Plum Creek, then, is poor, dirty, broken down and cowed by the Borgias - er, I mean Borgers. Ned arrives as a catalyst of change - and the only character who seems to have an endless cache of clean clothes - and the movie draws what must have been the core cast of the series to the ex-slaves' defense. Besides Ned and Crecencio that includes Sticks (Tim Scott), a rail-thin gray hair with a thick moustache who spends most of the movie overcoming his fears; Wren (Brenda Bakke), the tough/tender barmaid; Judge Longley (Richard Riehle), who apparently forsook justice for whiskey about the same time Borger first rode into town; and One Horse (Wes Studi), a Native American.
NED BLESSING is an old-fashioned, good vs. evil western with an impossibly accurate shooting title character and an impossibly vile antagonist in mean old Verlon Borger. Being a fan of this type of western, I enjoyed it quite a bit, with reservations. There's a scene with a lashed down hero and a rattlesnake that was too corny even for me. Further, there are some questions left unresolved. Maybe the series would have answered them, but it only lasted five episodes. What was One Horse carrying in that cotton sack that he protected so vigorously? How did Ned Blessing wind up in jail, and how did he lose his arm?
Recommended, especially if you're a fan of old-fashioned westerns.

I'm repeating myself in praising this Ned Blessing movie, but in case only one is noticed, I want to be sure Western fans know this is an excelent series of films. The realism is top-notch - Western fans may know Henry Winkler's short-lived series, 'The Dead Man's Gun', which has similar production values. You really get immersed in the atmosphere in the Ned Blessing movies; also, unlike another prominent Western, drama isn't phonied up by using profanity every thirty seconds. Here, the drama is in the quality of the writing, directing, acting and production. If you're a fan of Westerns, I urge you to look up "Ned Blessing" and add them to your cart right away.Ned Blessing: Return to Plum Creek

This was a pilot for a TV series that was the follow up to the mini series "Lonesome Dove" done by Bill Whittliff. Originally it was to be called, "Lone Justice II". I believe the series name was to be, called "Ned Blessing - His life and times". The powers that be didn't pick the series up - but the pilot is out there under this different name for rental, "Ned Blessing: Return to Plum Creek" Ned Blessing: Return to Plum Creek. This shows me that they can come up with good material for TV shows but then drop the ball when it comes to keeping them. (Witness "Firefly" and others). I enjoyed this movie, and purchased my own copy from Amazon. Check out the supporting performance of Gregory Scott Cummins who was going to be nominated for a guest starring Emmy award if the series got picked up - oh well! [...]

I have not actually purchased this item. I was about 14 years old and remember when the series aired on CBS. I remember watching all episodes of the miniseries (I actually recorded them onto VHS). However, when the time came for the final episode of the series to air...NOTHING! To my knowledge, the final episode never aired. It's funny that 17 years later I still want to know the answer to the unanswered questions-what was in wild horse's bag primarily. I did not purchase this movie based on another review which stated that these unanswered questions were not in the movie. If anyone, somewhere, someday ever has the answer to these questions please let me know!!! -17 years later and dyin' here :-)