Stories of the Century

TV's "Stories Of The Century" (1954-1955) was set in the American "Old West" where Matt Clark was a staunch, no-nonsense Railroad Detective whose territorial boundaries often extended well-beyond that of just the confined restrictions of the railroads.

Working together with either one of his trustworthy female sidekicks, Frankie Adams or Margaret Jones - Matt Clark could always be counted on to bring to justice some of the most notorious badmen (and bad women) whoever dared to challenge the law in this untamed frontier of America.

For the most part - "Stories Of The Century" was a fairly entertaining TV Western (from yesteryear) that certainly contained plenty of violence and gun-play in order to move its fast-paced stories about rough'n'rugged cowboys along.

I'll be up front here; I can't discern great, oscar winning acting from just plain good acting. So I'm not claiming to be an expert on the craft, but I CAN tell terrible acting from the decent stuff. Now, I grew up watching this show, and so was excited to find it on youtube to recapture some of milk, and sat down to watch a few episodes. I should have watched some Maverick episodes instead. Ugh. Just like the marionettes, claymation, and puppets, it hasn't aged well. Perhaps Chuck Norris grew up watching these, too, and that's what he patterned his acting after, because some of these actors are terrible. Still, it's worth a watch, if just to remember what fun it was when we were kids, to watch the westerns that we wanted to believe, were realistic examples of what life was long ago. But don't expect too much; enjoy it for what it is. Five out of ten stars.

'Big' Jim Davis, as Matt Clark, Railroad Detective, traveled west each week to aid in the capture of one of history's notable badmen(or women). At times, Clark's appearance at the scene seems somewhat contrived, as in just "happening" to be in town when Ford shoots Jesse James. The stories do have some limited educational value, as each one sticks to the basic facts, although production values for the series were decidedly low budget. One thing I could never figure out...one week Clark would chase Quantrill in 1863, the next Tom Horn in 1903...30 years apart...yet he never aged!

"Stories of the Century" (1954-55) was a 39-episode TV series produced by Republic Pictures that focused on the manhunts for famous western outlaws. The same hero, a railroad detective named Matt Clark, appeared every week, with one female partner in the first season and a new one in the second. His trademark narration opened with the same line in each episode, "The official newspaper files of the early west record many stories of famous and notorious characters of that period," following which he'd have choice words about the episode's highlighted outlaw(s).

The amusing conceit of this series is that the hero is either present or close by at the apprehension or killing of nearly every famous (or not-so-famous) western outlaw from the 1850s (Tom Bell) to the early 20th century (Tom Horn), from Missouri (Jesse James) to California (Black Bart). Yet Mr. Clark looks the same in every episode and the setting is the same old western town set that Republic Pictures used in hundreds of B-westerns, even when the action shifts to a big city (e.g. Kansas City or San Francisco). The series was cheaply shot but benefited from the inclusion of all manner of stunts and action scenes culled from Republic's extensive library of westerns. For instance, a chase involving wagons carting tanks of oil in the Black Jack Ketchum episode comes from the John Wayne western, WAR OF THE WILDCATS (1943). Captain Quantrill's murderous raid on Lawrence, Kansas in 1863 comes from Raoul Walsh's well-budgeted DARK COMMAND (1940). The actors in the series often had to wear costumes that matched the ones worn by the characters in the stock footage.

Some episodes relied on lots of stock footage, like "Ben Thompson" with its climactic fire in the wheat fields, while others consisted of nearly all new footage, like "The Dalton Gang," in which the raid on Coffeyville, Kansas and subsequent shootout were all newly staged for the episode. The action is quite impressive, directed as it is by Republic's top house director William Witney. (Witney did all of Season One and part of Season Two. Franklin Adreon directed the rest of Season Two.)

The series was best when the villains were formidable and the guest stars were top-ranked. Lee Van Cleef (FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE) turns up as Jesse James in the very first episode. Billy the Kid is played by Richard Jaeckel, who would appear as a supporting character in two later films about Billy, CHISUM and PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. Marie Windsor, who'd already played female outlaws in Republic westerns (HELLFIRE, DAKOTA LIL), plays Belle Starr. Ex-con Leo Gordon (RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11) plays Bill Doolin. A pre-Davy Crockett Fess Parker plays one of the Dalton Brothers. Former Tarzan Bruce Bennett plays Captain Quantrill. Henry Brandon (Chief Scar in THE SEARCHERS) plays cattle rustler Nate Champion. Other good episodes showcase The Younger Brothers, Johnny Ringo, Jack Slade, Tom Horn, and Cattle Kate.

Western regular Jim Davis played Matt Clark as a brusque, hard-line lawman, quick with both fists and guns. He gave no quarter and made no secret of wanting to see the outlaws hanged. In most Republic westerns I've seen, the villains were usually landowners, cattle barons, bankers, or businessmen with ulterior motives, never ordinary criminals. Not here. For once, the bad guys are psychotic killers, unrepentant thieves, and malcontents. In only a handful of episodes do we feel any sympathy for the lawbreakers, chief among them Doc Holliday, of course, who famously sided with Wyatt Earp in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and, yep, Matt was there. Others include the Cherokee Kid, a victim of racial prejudice, and Little Britches, a spunky but troubled young girl who falls in with older men who take advantage of her.

Matt Clark's female assistants were Frances "Frankie" Adams (Mary Castle) and Margaret "Jonesy" Jones (Kristine Miller), who represented stark contrasts in style. Frankie was no-nonsense and unassuming. She went undercover quite frequently, sometimes as bargirls and saloon entertainers, and blended in very well. She was unfazed by the toughest hombres and fought female outlaws hand-to-hand more than once. This was the first time I've ever seen Ms. Castle and she's quite a revelation. Miller, on the other hand, was a fashion plate who looked stunning in whatever outfits the story dictated. She carried herself like a lady and spoke with precise diction. She was never terribly convincing when operating undercover. She played her character as an ardent feminist who lamented having to do paperwork. She also reached out to female victims of the outlaws as in the episode where she comforts and nurses a Mexican woman who'd been abducted and raped by the Apache Kid. Matt often engaged in flirtatious banter with both women, although more often with Jonesy, who seemed to welcome it more.

There were excellent supporting players in some episodes and they provided some of the series' most powerful scenes. Black actress Louise Beavers (IMITATION OF LIFE, 1934) plays Aunt Nellie, the woman who'd raised the Younger Brothers, and she breaks our hearts when she makes the difficult decision to turn against them. Lisa Fusaro plays the Indian mother of the Cherokee Kid and has an angry outburst in court at his sentencing that takes the series to a whole new emotional level. There was also a consistent effort made to cast ethnically appropriate actors in the Indian and Mexican roles that popped up.

I watched 38 of the 39 episodes for this review. Some were better than others, as cited above, while some were fairly dull, thanks to minor guest actors (Don Haggerty as Sam Bass) and uninteresting no-name outlaws (L.H. Musgrove, anyone?). Still, it's quite an unusual western series, with an intriguing cross-section of western history and a steadier supply of action and violence than we got in the more standardized TV westerns of the later 1950s.

Stories Of The Century casts Jim Davis and Mary Castle as a pair of railroad detectives who seem to have aided in the apprehension or demise of every outlaw in the west. The years of their operations range all the way from the Civil War to the Theodore Roosevelt era and yet they aged not a day. This is in the tradition of the B western and it was the soon to be extinct Republic Pictures who produced this for television. William Witney, veteran contract director for Republic seems to have done most of the episodes.

I guess the fact that they ran out of name bandits was the cause of Stories Of The Century met its demise. A studio like Republic that had small scale operations should have been the first ones into television. Probably Herbert J. Yates regretted he didn't move earlier into the small screen.

The episodes I saw of the show had not one hint of any romance between Davis and Castle. They were all business every week and while Castle's considerable beauty and charm caused the fall of many an outlaw, she and Davis never got personal. In fact they were as impersonal as any Dragnet Show that Jack Webb did. Davis and Castle dealt only in facts.

Stories Of The Century with all the disclaimers about the impossibility of Davis and Castle being Zelig like at the scene of every outlaw's fall was not a bad series. It was a beginning of the TV trend to more adult westerns.