The Cartwrights ride into Season Two!
Continue reading ‘Bonanza’ (Season 2): Popular Western picks up steam, gallops into Top 20Tag Archives: Pernell Roberts
‘Bonanza’ (Season 1): Epic Western ropes viewers’ hearts in first of 14 seasons
Bonanza, the single most successful television series of the 1960s (and, at 13 1/2 seasons, second only to Gunsmoke for network TV’s longest-running Western), created and produced by David Dortort and starring Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, and Michael Landon, has been lovingly and painstakingly restored and remastered for CBS’s and Paramount’s fabulous DVD boxed set, Bonanza: The Official Complete Series. The hefty set—112 discs in four chunky volumes—was executive produced by Andrew J. Klyde, and his results are spectacular: all 431 full-length episodes have been digitally remastered (including the problematic Season 2 transfers previously released) from the original 35mm color film camera negatives, complete with original music…and with a ridiculous amount of incredibly rare, fascinating bonus material included on this set. It’s an astonishing work of television preservation.
Continue reading ‘Bonanza’ (Season 1): Epic Western ropes viewers’ hearts in first of 14 seasons‘Bonanza’ hits DVD – all 431 remastered episodes on 112 discs! Are you ready?
I really do need to remember a seemingly simple yet profound observation from the good doctor, John Dolittle, when he received the unasked-for gift of that fabulous pushmi-pullyu: “How thoughtful of somebody….people are awfully nice.” Such was my immediate response a week or two back when my postman delivered a rather substantial carton containing inside a fabulous treasure: a complimentary Bonanza: The Official Complete Series DVD boxed set!
Continue reading ‘Bonanza’ hits DVD – all 431 remastered episodes on 112 discs! Are you ready?‘Captains and the Kings’ (1976): Kennedyesque mini was the first of NBC’s ‘Best Sellers’ series
Hot creepers are they really trying to foist another Kennedy on us for the White House? As a VP replacement for Madame Word Salad? That family of bootlegging, pill-popping, ballot box-stuffing, movie star- shagging poon-hounds? Incrapitable!
Continue reading ‘Captains and the Kings’ (1976): Kennedyesque mini was the first of NBC’s ‘Best Sellers’ series‘The Deadly Tower’ (1975): Questionable—but suspenseful—re-telling of real-life Texas killings
In a post-holiday mood for something light, I happened upon an older Warner Bros. Archive Collection disc of The Deadly Tower, NBC’s 1975 made-for-TV movie with Disney alumnus Kurt Russell starring as infamous University of Texas sniper, Charles Whitman.
Continue reading ‘The Deadly Tower’ (1975): Questionable—but suspenseful—re-telling of real-life Texas killings