TV & Film
Zane Grey Western Threatre: Complete Season 1
Legendary writer Zane Grey died in 1939, but his name has remained synonymous with a high standard of quality and authenticity in western storytelling.
Case in point: the groundbreaking 1956-61 television series Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, a western anthology that was one of the most popular shows in the medium's golden age.
Actor Dick Powell served as host and appeared in 15 of the 149 episodes, only some of which were based on the short stories and novels of Zane Grey.
Zane Grey Western Theatre: Complete Season 1, featuring the series' first 31 episodes, is now available on DVD from VCI Entertainment.
Highlights of that inau-gural season include "You Only Run Once" with Robert Ryan and Cloris Leachman, "The Lariat" with Jack Palance, "Three Graves" with Jack Lemmon, and "Village of Fear" with David Niven.
The first-season episode "Badge of Honor," starring Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, proved popular enough to inspire a new western series, Trackdown.
That series, in turn, introduced the character of bounty hunter Josh Randall, played by Steve McQueen, who later received his own spin-off with Wanted: Dead or Alive.
Inspiring new TV westerns was a specialty of Zane Grey Theatre, a testament to its talented stable of writers, which included Aaron Spelling.
Five other episodes were developed into new western series, including The Rifleman, Johnny Ringo, Stagecoach West, and Black Saddle.
— David Hofstede
• Info: www.vcientertainment.com, 800-331-4077
Issue: July 2009
