Stagecoach West

"Stagecoach West" was in no way similar to "Wagon Train". Probably the closest thing to it would have been the very short-lived "Overland Trail" which came and went before "Stagecoach West" premiered in the fall of 1960. (The other show was a mid-season replacement that ran from Feb-June 1960. Both shows featured an older driver and a younger, good-looking sidekick. (Overland Trail had William Bendix as the seasoned driver and Doug McClure as his sidekick; Stagecoach West had Robert Bray and Wayne Rogers respectively.) The stagecoach provided the plot device to get them into a new location every week to look for trouble. "Stagecoach West" benefitted from the fact that its two leads were far more believable in their roles than "Overland Trail"; after years of "Life of Riley", nobody bought William Bendix as a Western lead, and McClure's character was a goofy skirt chaser. Bray didn't have a signature role in a sitcom to live down, and Wayne Rogers a decade or so before HIS signature role as Trapper John played his sidekick part more seriously with a bit more grit. The addition of Richard Eyer as Bray's young son added another dimension to the action. Sadly, both these shows were simply lost in the shuffle of far too many westerns that the TV studios were cranking out right and left. Proof indeed you CAN have too much of a good thing.

Just following this series on Talking Pictures. I did catch it as a child back in the sixties, but only tended to watch it when there was nothing else on. This happened quite a lot in those days since we only had a choice of two TV channels. My main recollection is being rather bored by the episodes featuring Simon and Davey, which always seemed to be so self-righteous, or rather like child development advice. Davey would end the episode having learned a valuable lesson about growing up having observed the idiosyncracys of the guest star, who usually played the villain. Viewing the series now, I still feel the same about these episodes, but I have been struck by the amount of killing which goes on. Most episodes have two or three shootings and some have even more. Both Luke and Simon are trigger happy and I think that the jobs with the shortest life expectancy must be relay station manager or hired hand. The number of those who get murdered by passing bandits is unbelievable. That's apart from Zeke of course, who always manages to survive despite a high turnover of underlings. And, no-one ever seems unduly upset by the deaths. Following the murder and mayhem, just before the closing credits roll, the three main characters usually manage a jokey exchange or ironic comment. All that's missing is the laughing, muted trumpet (wah, wah, w-a-a-h!) Maybe they cancelled the series because they'd run out of extras!

From the heyday of the TV western comes this superior entry. Starring a young Wayne Rogers(long before M.A.S.H.),the fine child actor Richard Eyer and Robert Bray,the series concerns the adventures of stagecoach drivers in the west in the period soon after the civil war. Produced by the "4 star" company,which usually guaranteed good quality entertainment,this well written series features some excellent guest stars like Harry Townes,Lon Chaney,James Coburn,Beverly Garland,Virginia Grey,Cesar Romero and Jack Lord. Robert Bray as one of the drivers and father to young Richard Eyer,is so often a villain in movies and TV series and has such a "bad guy" look about him,it's a bit odd seeing him on the side of the angels in this show. The failure of "Stagecoach west" to survive for more than a single season seems odd,unless it was simply a case of there having been a glut of western shows on TV at this time. TV western fans may well feel they've discovered an obscure gem if they can locate this rare series.

I've got no quarrel with the qualitative assessments here, but I do have to clarify a couple of things. First of all, STAGECOACH WEST and WAGON TRAIN had almost nothing in common, despite the presence of wagon wheels on both shows. One (STAGECOACH) spotlighted single stories of the heroes' interaction with one of the passengers on the stagecoach, while the other featured multiple stories of the many occupants of the wagons that made the cross-country journey. The stagecoach ride was short and almost never shown in its entirety, while the days-long journeys on WAGON TRAIN usually started and ended the episodes.

The other clarification is that, due to the series' structure (a 38-39 episode season, one-hour episodes), the length of production of each episode made it impractical to feature both Wayne Rogers and Robert Bray in every episode. (Again, this was another difference between the two; meantime, WAGON TRAIN solved this by having multiple leads--Ward Bond, Robert Horton, Robert Fuller--who often would share episodes.) Using the MAVERICK paradigm, most STAGECOACH WEST episodes just featured one or the other, with infrequent instances when both (not to mention Richard Eyer) were involved. The Rogers episodes involved him as more of a roving gunfighter-defender usually set in destination cities (more like WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE), while the Bray episodes were more homespun (like THE RIFLEMAN), set around the town where the stagecoach line was based. In other words, the partners were not interchangeable, just as Bret and Bart (or Beau and Bart, or even Brent and Bart) were usually given stories playing to their strengths, so, in essence, you got two different series under an umbrella title, even more similar to the much later NAME OF THE GAME.

The marshal thing seems to come and go; I'm not sure if Luke and Simon were deputized in mid-series or not, but I've seen episodes in which it would have been natural for one or the other to flash a badge, and they did not. (The consequences of viewing them randomly...)

One other thing: while it's historically interesting to see Wayne Rogers more than a decade before M*A*S*H (and Bray several years prior to becoming Corey Stuart on LASSIE), what's more interesting is how little Rogers changed between his series. In fact, you can hear Trapper John Alabama-tinged line readings in almost every episode of STAGECOACH WEST, (quite unlike Alan Alda, whose acting changed quite a bit in the same decade prior to M*A*S*H; see his episode of BILKO, for example), just as you knew what you were getting when Rogers later portrayed Jake Axminster and Dr. Charley Michaels. And even in his eighties, Rogers looks like he could still play Luke Perry.

A short-lived series in the golden days of television westerns,the series "Stagecoach West" was a superior entry that lasted more than one season,and produced 38 episodes,all in black and white. The series originally aired on ABC-TV from October 4, 1960 until June 27, 1961. This series was produced by the same people that brought you "The Rifleman" since it was produced by Four Star Television,the same company that also produced not only "The Rifleman",but was behind a glut of western programs like "Wanted:Dead or Alive", "Johnny Rango", "Law of the Plainsmen", "Zane Grey Theater" and so forth. Characters Luke Perry(Wayne Rogers),and his partner Simon Kane(Robert Bray)operated the Timberland Stage Line from Missouri to San Francisco. Simon's teenage son David "Davey" Kane(Richard Eyer)joins the two as they face stagecoach robbers,hostile Indians,murderers,inclement weather,and less sensational events they occurred. "Stagecoach West" was somewhat similar to NBC's "Wagon Train",since it was the network's answer to NBC's top-rated show.

The series during it's original airing was offered on Tuesday nights for the 1960-1961 season where it was opposite NBC's suspenseful "Thriller",hosted by Boris Karloff and CBS' musical-variety series "The Red Skelton Show". Although the stories were entertaining and well done from some of the great writing and direction that this series had. As for the episodes this series they were first rate within themselves. From the premiere episode "High Lonesome"(Episode 1),to "The Orphans" (Episode 34),"Three Wise Men"(Episode 11),"The Outcasts"(Episode 19), "Root of Evil"(Episode 21),"The Dead Don't Cry"(Episode 30),and the final episode of the series "The Marker"(Episode 38).

Notable guest stars that were on "Stagecoach West" were some of Hollywood's finest from James Best, to Robert Cabal, John Milford, Denver Pyle, Jack Elam, Don Dubbins, Joanna Barnes, Ruta Lee, John Dehner, Philip Carey, I. Stanford Jolley, Dan Haggerty, Ben Cooper, Beverly Garland, Cesar Romero, Virginia Grey, Warren Oates, Jack Lord, Robert Harland, Gigi Perreau, Darren McGavin,and James Coburn. Actor James Best appeared in two episodes of this series(Episodes 1 and 30).

After "Stagecoach West" ended in 1961,actors Wayne Rogers and Robert Bray went on to other television roles. Robert Bray later portrayed forest ranger Corey Stuart on Lassie from 1964 to 1969. Wayne Rogers became popular as "Trapper John" on the television series "M*A*S*H" from 1972 to 1975. Both shows were on CBS. As for child actor Richard Eyer he had starred in a number of films during the 1950's and 1960's including starring opposite Gary Cooper in the 1956 William Wyler flick "Friendly Persuasion". The series was canceled by ABC despite the high quality of the number of Westerns that dominated the television landscape during the 1960's.