50 Days to Moose Jaw

James Gregory is outstanding in this episode. Slim becomes real. One of my favorite episodes. If only there was a tv show like this every week, I think our children would be beneficiaries.

The Virginian and Trampas have themselves a rush order for a herd of cattle to be driven from Idaho to Moosejaw in Canada. With the railroads now pretty much all over the USA trail driving is an art of the past. But Canada isn't that settled and James Drury has to cobble together a crew and hope that some of them have drover experience.

Drury gets fortunate that James Gregory comes along who back in the day took The Virginian under his wing and taught him what he knows. A callow runaway played by Brandon DeWilde is along having left his stepfather Frank Overton's farm.

This was a real nice episode as Gregory and DeWilde bond on the cattle drive. But Gregory has a deep dark secret that he doesn't share with anyone on the drive.

DeWilde, Gregory, and Overton make this one of the 1st season's better episodes.

Moose Jaw Saskatchewan is on the flat bare praires.

The film shows it in a wooded mountain valley. WRONG!

And they sais the drive would be 400 miles. It is over 700 miles from Medicine Bow WY.

This episode has a bit of everything

There's some good comedy in this one (thanks to Doug and the gang of drovers), and I also found it interesting watching the drive in action (as well as the "bright lights" of 1890s Moosejaw). The other cowboys hired to drive the cattle are not merely plot devices, but interesting characters whose personalities shine through.

Drury is effective as the no-nonsense ramrod, but James Gregory's Slim reminds him of his humanity, too. Brandon deWilde (as James/Mike) does a good job in his role as a lost teen, and there's good chemistry between Slim and Mike; I found their relationship touching, and it echoes the father/son conflicts in the first few years of the series. Gregory was in fine form as a father figure here.

The episode ends in a hurry--and in a fairly predictable way--but overall, I really liked this one, and have watched it many times.

Mildewed cattle drive yarn sacrifices big sky grandeur for bargain basement drama, which quickly bogs down. Two inadequate lead performances compound the problems. Dudish James Gregory looks more saddle-sick than saddle-worn as a weathered cow puncher, and mannered juvenile Brandon De Wilde hesitates over his dialog as if he had forgotten it, a far cry from the magically natural child actor of "Shane." Drury and McClure do a commendable salvage job on parts of the episode that Gregory and De Wilde don't totally destroy, but not good enough to keep it from being one of the few outright disappointing efforts from season one.