The Annie MacGregor Story Feb 5, 1958
The Bill Tawnee Story Feb 12, 1958
The Mark Hanford Story Feb 26, 1958
The Bernal Sierra Story Mar 12, 1958
The Annie MacGregor Story is a cliché parade about two ethnic groups: Native Americans and Scots. Tudor Owen, (TV's version of Doanld Crisp), leads a small group of Scotsmen and women across the plains, accompanied by bagpipes to "New Scotland", (California) and is offended by anyone who tries to help them, as it implies to him that Scots cannot take care of themselves. Naturally, there's a Romeo and Juliet story as his daughter Annie, (Jeannie Carson) falls for a young man with Major Adams train, (Richard Long) who's last name is Campbell, the Campbells being sworn enemies of the MacGregors, (which is news to Long's character, born and raised in Pennsylvania). Meanwhile the Kiowas are on the warpath and waiting to ambush the train as it goes through a mountain pass, (represented by two Southern California ridges). But there's one thing the Indians are afraid of: bagpipes!
Bill Tawnee, (McDonald Carey, who doesn't look very much like a Native American but is a good enough actor to pull it off), is a famous Indian scout who served with Seth in the Civil war He's now moving west with the wagon train and his wife, (Joy Page, who played Helmut Dantine's wife in Casablanca as he tries to win enough money to get passage at the gaming tables). He just wants to settle down but the prejudice he faces from the people on the train and elsewhere has convinced him that living with whites is no longer a possibility. Naturally, he comes to the rescue of the train at the end as a gang of crooks try to rob it.
Mark Hanford, (Tom Tryon, who never played Superman but could have), starts out dressed as a white businessman who has come back from the east after a college education. But he finds out that his Indian mother has left his authoritarian rancher father and died with her people. He new hates his father (Onslow Stevens) and hates the dance hall girl, (Kathleen Crowley) he intends to marry. He kidnaps her to bring the pain to his father his mother must have felt. But then he falls for the young woman and she for him. The father kidnaps some Sioux and demands they be exchanged for his new wife. A strong and well-acted episode.
Bernal Sierra is played by Gilbert Roland and this episode is elevated by his presence, as was anything he was ever in. He plays a loyal follower of Benito Juarez who is following two thieves who stole gold from Juarez intended to purchase guns. The thieves are the beautiful wife of a friend and an American smuggler, played by 'Charlita', (actually Clara Isabella DeFreitas from Lowell, Mass) and old Warner Brothers hand Louis Jean Heydt. The ending is a big surprise concerning what's in a coffin with a clever reason why Bernal knew what wasn't in it. Roland co-wrote the script for this episode.
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