Cavalry Patrol

"Cavalry Patrol" was a pilot for a television series that the networks never picked up...and like so many of these failed pilots it was eventually shown as an episode of an extant television series. In hindsight, I could see why it wasn't approved...it was just okay and television was already chock full of westerns at that time.

The setting is out west and concerns a motley group of men in the US Cavalry. They are on patrol and in need of water...which brings them to a dead woman and her oddly hostile husband. In fact, most of the show was pretty good but his reaction to the Cavalry and the Cavalry's response seems just plain weird.

Overall, the production was competent and watchable...nothing more, nothing less.

This is a b/w outdoor western about a cavalry outfit in 1868 Arizona. It was filmed as a pilot for a 30-minute western series but it wasn't picked up. Zane Grey Theater was picked up instead and it went on to be a long running successful series.

Dewey Martin stars as Lt. Johnny Reardon, commander of G Troop. He leads a cavalry patrol and learns that the supposedly peaceful Apaches are on the warpath. The situations are far flung and the dialogue unbelievable. The resolution of the warpath problem is off the charts unbelievable. Had Cavalry Patrol been picked up as a regular series, the writing would have had to be vastly improved for it to last longer than one season.

The cast is good as there are many familiar face sprinkled in among the troopers and Apaches. Sheb Wooley plays a scout that is quite similar to his Pete Nolan character on Rawhide. Victor Jory and Paul Richards play Apaches.

I just watched this on YouTube on the Forgotten Westerns series. It's worth spending 30 minutes to watch it as a view into what television used to be.

Given the credits of director Charles Marquis Warren and writer John Champion, and with a cast of westenr veterans like John Pickard, Dewey Martin and Sheb Wooley, this pilot for a proposed series shoudl have been far better than it was. Warren has done some excellent westerns in the past--1953's "Arrowhead" being a particularly good example--but this is far from his best work. The writing is hackwork, the "action"--such as it is--is pjoorly done, and everything pretty much falls apart at the end, with a completely unbelievable resolution. A good director and a good cast don't necessarily result in good work, and this failed pilot proves it.