Timeless Media Group has corralled all five seasons of The Gene Autry Show (1950-1955) into a single set for release on December 10.
This blog is not about TV. Other people know a lot more about it than I do and do a much better job covering it than I ever could. But when you’re familiar with the features, seeing how Gene transitioned from theaters to living rooms is fascinating — and in keeping with what happened to Gene’s career, and the Western itself, over the course of the decade.
When Autry stopped making features — the TV series began in 1950, the movies lasted into 1953 — he brought a lot of actors and crew over to the show. George Archainbaud, for instance, directed Gene’s last feature, Last Of The Pony Riders (1953), and TV shows throughout its run. William Bradford, who shot a number of the later features, did all but a handful of the TV shows. (How’d they pull all this off?) Many of the TV writers had also written for the Autry features at some point, including a single episode by brothers Dorrell and Stewart E. McGowan, who’d scripted one of Gene’s best, South Of The Border (1939). (They also wrote one of my favorite films, 1949’s Hellfire).
The shows really have the feel of an Autry feature. Shorter and cheaper, of course, with a plot that’s even more bare-bones than the movies — and usually limited to a single song. Each episode exists as its own entity, too. From one show to the other, Gene is everything from a rancher to a U.S. Marshall, it’s the Old West one week and the Fabulous Fifties the next, and sometimes Gene doesn’t even know his sidekick Pat Buttram. Gene was a great businessman, and he was smart enough to stick with a sure thing — whether it’s a cameraman or a formula.
Making my way through the series, what really struck me was the incredible stream of actors and actresses that turn up from week to week: Denver Pyle, Alan Hale, Jr. (who’s a sidekick for a while), James H. Griffith, Kermit Maynard, John Doucette, Fuzzy Knight, Lyle Talbot, Robert J. Wilke, Tom Tyler, Jack Ingram, Clayton Moore, Chill Wills, Glenn Strange, James Best, Francis Ford, Lee Van Cleef. Gloria Talbott, Nestor Paiva, Peggy Stewart, “Curly” Joe Besser, Tommy Ivo and a million more. (That has to be the longest sentence I’ve ever written.) Autry’s acting leaves a lot to be desired — though he’d come a long way since The Phantom Empire (1936), but he surrounded himself with some real pros, and they do wonders for these shows.
You can’t help being knocked for a loop by the color episodes. Two first-season shows were done in color as an experiment and the fifth season is color all the way. The type of color isn’t identified — my guess would be Eastmancolor — and it looks pretty weird, a little blown out in spots. But that’s the fault of the original material, not something we can complain to Timeless Media Group about. It’s terrific to see Gene and Roy and Champion in color. These were transfered from Gene’s personal material and are spotless, with supplements like radio shows, photo galleries and commercials — along with an extra DVD that gives you episodes of other shows from Autry’s Flying ‘A’ Productions. Recommended.
Gene Autry at work on his TV show. Photo lifted from Steven Lodge’s blog.
I’m glad you put this one in, Toby. They really do come across like the features but shorter and maybe a little tighter even. Print quality on this set from Timeless is stunning too. It is difficult to keep up with all that Timeless is putting out as they do not seem to be updating their website as fastidiously as they used to.
“Tight” is a great way to describe these things, and “stunning” is the perfect word for these DVDs, Jerry.
And whether it’s Gene Autry we need to thank for keeping them in good shape, or Timeless for making them look as good as new — these are gorgeous.
Have you seen John Payne’s series, The Restless Gun? I like them a lot.
Yes, I have seen quite a few episodes of “The Restless Gun”, Toby, and I like it rather well too. John Payne made some terrific films in the fifties, I think, both noirs and westerns. My darling daughter who likes to keep her old dad happy is buying me the complete series of “The Restless Gun” for Christmas!
I used to watch this series on the Westerns Channel. I plan to pick it up down the road. I agree the color episodes are startling. So I did a little looking up and found out that Gene Autry made only two feature films in color, and they were both out of print on DVD. His second, THE BIG SOMBRERO (1949) was easy to find and still cheap, but STRAWBERRY ROAN (1948) had been selling for hundreds of dollars on amazon marketplace ever since it went out of print in 2008. A year and a half went by with my checking amazon and ebay regularly for an affordable copy. Then last Monday an amazon marketplace seller posted a used copy for $30. Normally I don’t buy DVD’s priced that high, but under the circumstances, I made an exception. I clicked Buy It Now. The seller told me he had only posted the DVD a few minutes before I bought it.
Columbia and the Autry Museum did the best they could to restore STRAWBERRY ROAN, but the elements are problematic. The primitive Cinecolor process is constantly breaking up and splitting into multiple images. Hi-def scanning exposes the special “orange” makeup under the actor’s pancake to correct color anomalies in the photography. THE BIG SOMBRERO is the better of the two films in terms of writing and directing, and Columbia seems to have worked out the problems with Cinecolor during principle photography. The color is correct and lovely in an antique kinda way. STRAWBERRY ROAN makes extensive use of Sedona, Arizona’s red rock country (I collect films shot in Sedona). Red, incidentally, is the most unstable part of the spectrum in the Cinecolor process. THE BIG SOMBRERO is partially shot in the Saguaro cactus park that would soon become Old Tucson Studio. Both films gain enormously in terms of atmosphere, style and production value from these locations.
Now that I have the rare color films I want to resume gathering more of Autry’s classic musicals. I saw many on TV when I was little but except for PHANTOM EMPIRE (which is a hoot) I don’t know which is which. What would you say are some of Autry’s best films? or his most interesting? Which DVD’s should I buy? any recommendations?
I like South Of The Border a lot, Strawberry Roan, Loaded Pistols (which has no sidekick in it) and Shooting High (the one he made for 20th Century Fox).
The Cowboys And The Indians is cool because he sings “Here Comes Santa Claus” in it.
My daughter and I are HUGE fans of Phantom Empire. What a goofball masterpiece that that thing is.
I recently bought series 5, the colour episodes, and it’s a very good set. Obviously the Autry series was aimed at the youngsters, so the episodes are much different to slightly later TV series such as Have Gun, Will Travel, Restless Gun etc., they were more teenage/adult, but if you like Gene Autry westerns, you will really enjoy this collection. The added bonus of colour and the good location film work give each episode a touch of Autry class. Pat Buttram can get on your nerves a bit, but that’s what most sidekicks do anyway; except for Gabby. This Timeless DVD is good quality, without any of the picture problems that affected their DVD television sets of a few years ago.
Regarding the two Autry Cinecolor films, I expect Timeless will be releasing those in near future. At the moment they are releasing all the films originally put out by Image DVD in very nice 4 film sets at a fair price. The latest is collection 4, with a mix of Republic and Columbia films.
Also Encore Westerns is currently showing most all of the Autry movies. They seem to show several every week, but at all different times and days. Sundays at noon though is still the regular Autry timeslot, to see Autry movies at other times on Encore you have to look at the schedule every day, they pop up randomly almost every day.
And yes, I have also been watching Restless Gun every Friday night. The show is very entertaining. Some episodes are rather silly or light hearted (basically comedies) but most of them are serious or adventure/dramas.
Actually, the four Timeless Gene Autry Collections released so far have been movies that were not released by Image, with Gene Autry Entertainment. Some of the titles were out in public domain releases, possibly including some from Timeless before they became involved with Gene Autry Entertainment.
Image did re-release some of their earlier single release Autry movies in 4 movie collections of 4 movies each. Gene Autry Collection Vol. 1-4. Be careful if you look for these online, as some of the public domain titles use similar titles, like Gene Autry Vol. 1
Bob G, you are right about the first four volumes of the Autry films. Maybe I was just hoping that they will get around to releasing all the films on the deleted Image DVDs, so that prices will come down to a reasonable level again. Mike
Mike, if they continue with the unreleased Autry movies first, that will take a long time, since there are still 20-30 Autry movies that have not been officially released.
Rooting around the internet this morning, I discovered that there were 6 Image 4 movie collections.
I am very surprised at the prices being asked for them on Amazon. $400+ dollars for the Mary Lee/June Storey Collection!! $100.00 if bought separately.
I bought all the single movie editions as they were coming out when deepdiscount had their 25% off sales. I did not realize I was making an investment.
Oldies.com still carries a few of them in stock, and Amazon Marketplace, but otherwise the Image releases have disappeared from the other online sellers I checked.
Thanks again Bob G, I didn’t realise Image DVD had that many titles left to put out when they stopped releasing the Autry films. Thankfully, I was able to buy some of the Image DVDs at the right price. I really don’t know if anyone is actually buying them at the crazy prices on Amazon right now.
Another non-Amazon source for some of the Image Autry movies is The Gene Autry Museum Store. http://shop.theautry.org
They have a sale going on now that ends sometime Sunday.
Timeless Media is releasing volume 5 in March, and volume 6 in May, of their Gene Autry Collections 4-movie approved editions. Five new titles to official DVD and one Image rerun, STRAWBERRY ROAN, in Volume 6.