Customer Reviews

The Texan

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am with this outstanding set from Timeless Media Group. Seventy of the 78 episodes of the classic (1958-60) CBS television western "The Texan," starring rugged Rory Calhoun as "Bill Longley," are found in this compilation. The video quality is a surprising "9;" the audio quality of this set is equally good. Each episode runs roughly 26 minutes and contains the original open and close -- which includes the wonderful rumbling/muscular Desilu theme music soundtrack. Outstanding guest stars accompany Calhoun in his trek through the southwest, including Jack Elam, Morgan Woodward, James Coburn, Bethel Leslie, Richard Devon, Bob Steele, Anthony Caruso, Alan Hale Jr., Denver Pyle, Neville Brand, Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Jaeckel, Cesar Romero, Karen Sharpe, R.G. Armstrong, Strother Martin, James Best, Shirley Knight, Brian Donlevy, Robert Wilke, Michael Landon, John Dehner, Paul Fix, and Mike Connors. This set is a MUST HAVE for any collector of classic TV westerns. Thank you for taking the time to read my review.

Disc One:

Law of the Gun -- Neville Brand
Man With the Solid Gold Star -- Bruce Bennett
Troubled Town -- Harry Dean Stanton
First Notch -- J. Carroll Naish
Edge of Cliff -- Mike Connors
Jail for Innocents -- Vaughn Taylor
Tree for Planting -- James Westerfield, Paul Fix

Disc Two:

Hemp Tree -- Michael Landon
Widow of Paradise -- Alan Hale Jr.
No Tears for Dead -- Michael Pate, Beverly Washburn
Easterner -- Jack Elam
Time of the Year -- George Macready
Lord Will Provide -- Murvyn Vye, Ellen Corby
Duchess of Denver -- Alan Dinehart

Disc Three:

Quart of Law -- Robert Lowery, Holly Bane
Outpost -- Christopher Dark
Peddler -- Lou Jacobi
Return to Friendly -- John Harmon
Man Behind the Star -- Richard Jaeckel, Brian Donlevy
Ringer -- Grant Withers, Paul Brinegar, Ron Hayes
Marshal of Yellow Jacket -- Robert Wilke, Read Morgan

Disc Four:

No Love Wasted -- Lon Chaney Jr.
Race for Life -- Kelly Thordsen
Letter of the Law -- R.G. Armstrong, Trevor Bardette
Private Account -- Karen Sharpe, Jesse White
Caballero -- Cesar Romero
Blood Money -- Dorothy Provine
No Place to Stop -- Strother Martin, Denver Pyle

Disc Five:

Reunion -- Bethel Leslie, Robert F. Simon
Badlands -- Ralph Moody
South of Border -- Jack Elam, John Doucette
Smiling Loser -- Harry Lauter, Red Morgan
Sheriff of Boot Hill -- Denver Pyle
Gunfighter -- John Pickard
Man Hater -- Henry Brandon, Henry Kulky

Disc Six:

No Way Out -- James Griffith, Lucien Littlefield
Image of Gulit -- Don Haggerty
Dishonest Posse -- Jack Lambert, Bing Russell
Blue Northern -- Harry Dean Stanton
Traildust -- Brian Donlevy
Telegraph Story -- Denver Pyle
Stampede -- Shirley Knight

Disc Seven:

Showdown at Abilene -- Barbara Luna
Trouble on Trail -- Michael Dante
Cowards Don't Die -- Sherwood Price
Border Incident -- Alan Hale Jr.
Dangerous Ground -- Alan Hale Jr.
End of Track -- Alan Hale Jr.
Friend of the Family -- John Dehner, James Coburn

Disc Eight:

Terrified Town -- Bob Steele, Richard Devon
Sixgun Street -- Richard Devon, Alan Dinehart
Taming of Rio Nada -- Richard Devon, Alan Dinehart
Thirty Hours to Kill -- Malcolm Atterbury
Quarantine -- Alan Hale Jr.
Buried Treasure -- Duncan Lamont
Captive Crew -- Alan Hale Jr.

Disc Nine:

Showdown -- Anthony Caruso, Alan Hale Jr., Ron Hayes
Governor's Lady -- Myron Healey
Town Divided -- Morgan Woodward
Guilty & Innocent -- Denver Pyle
Presentation Gun -- Harry Harvey
Nomad -- Wm. Fawcett
Killer's Road -- James Best, Lane Bradford

Disc Ten:

Lady Tenderfoot -- Jack Elam, Claire Kelly
Invivible Noose -- Bill Erwin
Johnny Tuvo -- Frank Wilcox, Myron Healey
Accuser -- Don Haggerty
Mission to Monterey -- Lane Bradford
Badman -- Anthony Warde
Twenty-four Hours to Live -- Paul Birch

Coming from the same company that edited TV episodes on previous DVD releases and offered grainy 16mm transfers, I hesitated buying this set. Glad I gave them a chance 'cause this is superb!

Every episode is uncut and unedited and the best superior picture quality from the original 35mm nitrate negatives. In other words, you will not find better anywhere else.

The guests include Neville Brand, a young Michael Landon, Andy Clyde, James Drury and many others. If you hesitate because people often are too critical (champagne taste and a beer budget wallet) take my word for it as a guy who is picky about his DVDs. Buy this today!

"The Texan- The Best Of" is a release by Timeless Media Group of 70 of the 78 episodes of this Western television series starring popular Western movie actor Rory Calhoun. In "The Texan," Calhoun played Bill Longley, a ex-Confederate soldier who came home after the Civil War to find his plantation burned down and his wife dead. He then began to roam the West, using his considerable gunfighter skills to help old friends or new friends in trouble.

It is a shame that eight of the episodes of this series were not found or were incomplete so that the complete series could not be released. This was a very entertaining TV series. Calhoun's charm, plus his many years of experience appearing in Western films, made "The Texan" interesting and engaging. Like the best Western heroes, Calhoun could play serious and comic scenes with equal aplomb, and made Longley a believable and enjoyable hero.

One can only hope that the other eight episodes of the series will be found and be usable in a future release.

Finally finished viewing the entire 70 episode collection. Calhoun gives a good performance as the lead character throughout, and Timeless Media did an adequate job in assembling the collection. Wonderful theme music and atmospheric settings.

However, I was astonished at how badly the series deteriorated during the second season, and I cannot explain what the cause of the problem was. Somebody either gave up on maintaining the quality of the series and lost interest or the money supply dried up. This is hard to understand, as Desilu helped to co-produce the series, and usually put out a quality product.

First off the second season was marred by by two endless storylines. The first involved a cattle drive, probably inspired by the popularity of Rawhide. Way too many fakey scenes filmed indoors on phony horses, instead of realisitic on location shooting.

The second boring storyline took place at a railroad spur construction site. This seemed to go on for 5 or 6 episodes, and was a chore to sit through.

What really annoyed me about the second season was that many of the episodes are stuffed with stock footage from the first season. The last episode on the collection is virtually an entire reprint of an earlier episode with a few new scenes thrown in for good measure. Some of this nonsense is hilarious. In one of the episodes Longley in appointed deputy marshall and given a badge. As he races through the canyons tracking down some gunman, scenes from the first season are spliced into the episode. So in one scene Longley has a badge on his vest, in the next the badge vanishes, only to reappear in the next scene.

It is sad that the program disintegrated as badly as it did for the second season.

Give the first season an A, the second season a D.
ken

I have watched thirty-five episodes (5 discs) thus far of this set. I normally won't do a review until I've watched the complete set but 10 discs with 70 episodes is a lot of viewing. What I have seen thus far has not been disappointing. I can't help but make a comparison to Timeless Media Group's release of The Deputy several months previously, that set was a debacle, the quality was not very good. So, it was with trepidation when I decided to purchase this set. The quality of The Texan is extremely good, oh, there's a flaw here & there but nothing I've seen thus far has detracted from my enjoyment of it. It's not quite on the level of a major studio or network release but it's still very good.

Rory Calhoun stars as The Texan, Bill Longley. There was a gunfighter of some renown by the same name in the West, he was from Texas but not the nice guy portrayed in this series. There was no other supporting cast; it's Rory Calhoun only. He was also a co-executive producer so he had his own money sunk into this.

I fondly remember the series from the late fifties & early sixties but I didn't remember any particular episode. Honestly, I don't remember seeing this series anywhere on television for more than 40 years. It's been my experience in recent years with so many old television series released on DVD that these 30 minute dramatic & western series usually feel rushed, that is, a lot of shortcuts were done in the script in order to keep it within the 30 minute framework. I'm not saying things were done sloppily, though sometimes they were, but that the time frame didn't allow much character development nor story development. In most cases I haven't felt that way about the 35 episodes I have watched. For the most part they were quality scripts & well done.

Surprisingly, I saw Louis L'Amour involved in two of the stories. The first he got story credit & the second he got screenplay credit. The second one (can't remember the episode's title) actually had the character, Chick Bowdrie, which L'Amour had written many short stories about. I just thought it unique that L'Amour would include one of his characters in an episode. At the end of the episode Bowdrie declares to The Texan he's going to become a marshall because of what Bill Longley had done.

They were plenty of "name" guest stars though few of major prominence in the episodes. They include: Neville Brand, Harry Dean Stanton, Mike Connors (Mannix), Michael Landon (Bonanza), Alan Hale, Jr., Jack Elam, Ellen Corby, Brian Donlevy (he was a major), Lon Chaney, Jr., Cesae Romero, Dorothy Provine, Denver Pyle & Strother MArtin. These are in just the first 35 episodes, some more than once.

There are eight missing episodes & I've yet to hear why they weren't included in this set. There isn't any bonus materials, not even subtitles. You can get this set for a good price if you shop around so do so. Fans of the old fifties television Westerns should get this.

03-14-09
I finally have completed viewing the entire set. In the final 35 episodes I saw two episodes that weren't in as good of shape as the rest. They weren't unwatchable so that's okay. Rory Calhoun even wrote one episode; it was a theme that's been done many times. Longley befriends a down-and-out man & is talked into teaching him how to become a fast draw but ends up turning on the Texan. Calhoun really did a fine performance proving he could act.
Season two of The Texan had a change in its approach: The Texan wasn't as much of a drifter & held several jobs, much like in the series Cheyenne. There's an extended string of episodes involving the same supporting cast. The longest string has Longley working with a railroad construction company. He also is hired as a trail boss on a cattle drive. In at least two or three episodes he's working for the governor of Texas as an undercover man.There's even one episode that appears to be an near exact duplicate of an episode that was done earlier in the set.

Apparently there were 37 episodes for season 1 & 41 episodes for season 2 though this doesn't seem right. From an online source it appears that these episodes are in order of broadcast but this doesn't seem quite right either. The string of episodes that involves the railroad construction are broken up by an episode or two between that particular extended story line.

Missing episodes: Season 1, episode 10 "Desert Passage"
Season 1, episode 22 "The Eyes of Captain Wylie"
Season 2, episode 3 "Cattle Drive"
Season 2, episode 10 "The Reluctant Bridegroom"
Season 2, episode 16 "Rough Track to Payday"
Season 2, episode 26 "Borrowed Time"
Season 2, episode 31 "Ruthless Woman"
Season 2, episode 36 "The Mountain Man"
I still don't know why these 8 episodes aren't included in the set. I've really enjoyed this set & I can recommend that you are getting value with this set.

I'll be murdered for this but I got sucked into purchasing this set based on the over the top praising of the brilliant picture quality. I'm guessing these reviewers are comparing this to bootleged video or other some sort of 3rd generation videos because frankly the image quality is mediocre with some exceptions. the first disc has two SOLID episodes with actual blacks and whites...which are " The Man with the solid Gold Star" and "Jail for the Innocents"...the other 5 are lacking in contrast. What that means is they don't have any SNAP or pop....a lot of gray but no real strong black or brilliant white...they are FLAT.

If you are a fan of the series I'm sure you'll be happy to have at least this workable version but to compare this to say "RAWHIDE" or even "CHEYENNE" for picture quality would be ridiculous and even the Lone Ranger set from several years earlier puts this to shame in picture quality. The second disc opens more promising with the first few episodes showing the contrast one would expect from original negatives and living up to the praises of the other reviews..but alas...episodes with flat contrast and no snap also begin appearing half way through this batch of 7.

by the way...I bounced clear out to disc 7 to catch a favorite of mine James Coburn in a guest role but alas its another of the muddy washed out flat episodes.

As far as the series....and acting and story lines...I did not view it when it aired so I don't have nostalgia attached but I found it only okay....not in the league of Rawhide, Cheyenne, or Gunsmoke by any means..or Maverick.

Buyer be ware....rose colored glasses are being worn by the overly excited reviewers here when it comes to picture quality anyway.

I've been waiting for The Texan to be released in a viewable format for many years, & this DVD set is just what I was hoping for. The show is fairly well-produced, outdoor locations are used for about 80% of the scenes. The theme music is one of my three favorite Western theme songs: it's mysterious yet exciting, especially the part played over the end credits. Rory Calhoun is a very good actor, & he's supported by many well-known character players of the time. The Texan is a tough show, there's typically even more violence here than Shotgun Slade, which was known for its violent content. The basic premise of the show is simple & straight-forward: Everyone knows Bill Longley, he's The Texan, the fastest gun in the West. But despite that knowledge, someone always provokes him into a gunfight & is killed in the process. Nothing fancy here, just a pure, unadulterated Western, served up 1950s style. Highly Recommended!

Timeless Media Group presents "THE TEXAN" (29 September 1958) (1790 min/B&W) -- The Texan was a Western television series starring popular B-Film star Rory Calhoun --- It aired on the CBS television network from 1958 and last aired September 19, 1960.

In The Texan, Calhoun played Bill Longley, an American Civil War veteran from Texas who roams the West helping people in need --- Often the plot would center around Longley helping an old friend or a relative of an old friend --- He was known by name and reputation as a fearsome gunfighter, and his reputation both saved time and caused him trouble --- Longley a level headed "cowboy" always on the move --- He never looked for trouble but it usually found him --- Trouble may have found him but he was so fast with a gun that it never stuck around.

The Texan ran for only two seasons -- After the 79-episode run --- Calhoun co-produced The Texan in partnership with Desilu Productions, the production company founded by Lucille Ball and her first husband, Desi Arnaz, Sr. --- Calhoun returned to starring and co-starring in "B" Westerns, and making occasional television appearances --- In Calhoun's later years, he starred in several B-Westerns --- He also found success as a screenwriter, producer, director, and rancher.

After the The Texan was canceled, he continued to appear in both television and film throughout the 1970s and 1980s including; Rawhide, Gilligan's Island, Hawaii Five-O, Alias Smith and Jones, Starsky and Hutch, and Motel Hell --- In 1982 Calhoun had a regular role on the soap opera Capitol --- He stayed with the series until 1987 --- His final role was that of grizzled family patriarch and rancher Ernest Tucker in the 1992 film "Pure Country"
.
BIOS:
Rory Calhoun (aka: Francis Timothy McCown)
Date of Birth: 8 August 1922 - Los Angeles, California
Date of Death: 28 April 1999 - Burbank, California

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 5 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

If you enjoyed my review and love Timeless Media Group release, check out my review on this Restless Gun Series: The Restless Gun -- and Hopalong Cassidy Tv Series Hopalong Cassidy: The Complete Series (1952-1954) 52 Episodes -- The Gene Autry Show The Gene Autry Show: The Complete First Season (1950-1951) 26 Episodes *Authorized by the Gene Autry Estate*

Total Time: 1720 min on DVD ~ Timeless Media Group ~ (11/18/2008)

Somehow or other I missed watching this half-hour BW Western when it was first on TV, so buying this box set was somewhat in the nature of a gamble. Rory Calhoun was a surprisingly versatile actor who seems all but forgotten today--not conventionally handsome, but he profits from a tall, lean build and glossy black hair in a natural widow's peak. As Bill Longley (the actual name of a vicious and ruthless gunslinger of the Old West), he drifts from Arizona to Montana, distinctively clad in black and white and companied only by a beautiful piefaced black-and-white overo pinto, and comes to be known as "the Texan." Though it's widely known that "his gun's not for hire"--many lawmen are friends of his, and others know and respect his reputation--he lives by doing deputy work, shotgun guarding on stages, bossing trail herds, troubleshooting for express companies, guiding wild-horse hunters, and serving as second-in-command on a telegraph-stringing crew and troubleshooter/assistant project engineer on a railroad track crew. He ferrets out the truth of murders and robberies, finds and helps a nine-year-old boy traumatized to muteness by his father's murder, takes the part of a beleaguered Mexican attempting to establish a peach orchard and a bullied Hungarian peddler, kills a man in self-defense and discovers that the law obligates him to support the victim's widow and her children until she remarries (and that the very attractive widow--who's also the sheriff's daughter--has eyes for him), poses as a preacher to break the hold of a ring of bad guys on a town, tracks down a man inexplicably pretending to be him, has a reunion with two old friends from the Confederacy one of whom is married to the other's former fiancee, heads up a fractious posse whose members decide they'd rather split the recovered loot than return it, unwittingly walks into the middle of a feud between an outlaw and a retired lawman, and has many other adventures, some unique in my experience of Westerns.

Distractingly, the dating of the series is all over the map: at various times we see a check dated 1872, a headstone 1871, and a poster 1873, hear references to "five years after Appomattox" (1870) and to the deaths of Wild Bill Hickok (1876), Sam Bass (1878), Billy the Kid (1881), Ben Thompson and King Fisher (1884), and find Bill working with a railroader who speaks of going on to build a line across the Dakotas (1873) and bossing "the first herd" from Texas to Denver (probably c. 1859-60). (Of course, the writers--who include Frank Gruber, Louis L'Amour, Samuel A. Peeples (a.k.a. novelist Brad Ward), Irving Wallace, and Calhoun himself (who also co-produced the series)--may simply be randomly selecting incidents from a long career.) Guest stars include such stalwarts of the era as Michael Dante, Alan Hale Jr. (who appears no less than five times), James Drury, William Schallert, Morgan Woodward, Paul Fix, Andy Clyde (twice), Ray Teal, Michael Pate (twice), Ellen Corby, Paul Brinegar, Ralph Moody, Douglas V. Fowley (amazingly young, or at worst middle-aged), R. G. Armstrong, Trevor Bardette, Stuart Randall (who makes no less than three appearances as three different sheriffs!), Charles Gray, Peter Whitney, Robert J. Wilkie (a four-timer), John Doucette, Myron Healy (three times), Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez (twice), perpetual Indian Frank deKova, Anthony Caruso, B-Western legend Bob Steele (as gunfighter Luke Short, whom Longley kills--the real one didn't), John Dehner, James Coburn, Malcolm Atterbury, Jack Elam (three times), Denver Pyle, Brian Donlevy, Cesar Romero, Dorothy Provine, Lon Chaney Jr., Neville Brand, Strother Martin, and a very young Michael Landon. It's worth noting that some of the episodes seem to be recorded out of sequence: "Trouble on the Trail," on Disc 7, should be watched before "Showdown at Abilene" (both are elements of one of two three-part series); "End of the Track," also on Disc 7, actually belongs with "Buried Treasure" (Disc 8), "Captive Crew" (ditto), and "Showdown" (Disc 9), all of which, in approximately that order, comprise the railroad-building arc. I also found, disappointingly, that each of the ten discs in my particular set had a rather bad flaw in exactly the same place, a problem I hope the company will be willing to rectify (Timeless Media does occasionally have difficulties with its pressings, but is usually very decent about making good). (Be sure you buy this ten-disc set rather than the two-disc tin if you're interested in getting anything like the full series, though there are still 10 segments left out.)

ther cast listing for disc 7 of the texan is in error. on border incident claude akins stars. alan hale jr is in texan episodes about building the railroad but this show concerns Longeley hiring out to a
rancher who is a crook