The Good
Clint Eastwood played Rowdy Yates in a way that no other actor could.
The Bad
No Extras. Only half the episodes from the Second Season have been released here.
Rawhide: The Complete Second Season again presents us with the adventures of Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood) and his boss, Gil Favor (Eric Fleming). Giving us amazing locales, immediate action and strong stories, Rawhide, like Gunsmoke is filled with a reality that few shows have.
Opening with “Incident of the Day of the Dead,” we see Rowdy Yates tricked into breaking a horse that is known for killing men. Mixing the family drama of the horses owners into the story, Rowdy has to show everyone around him what true courage is. “Incident of the Thirteenth Man” sees the present day legal system put on trial when Rowdy and Wishbone (Paul Brinegar) cast dissenting votes in a trial that others want to go another way. Lastly, “Incident of the Valley In the Shadow” sees aspects of The Searchers when a white women is kidnapped by some Indians. Things take a more interesting turn when she joins up with Rowdy and Co. and is afraid of the bounty hunters trying to help her.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Features
No Extras came with this release.
Video
Full Screen Format. Paramount has a somewhat spotty record in how they present certain titles. Having watched through the Happy Days DVDs, I am amazed at the amount of wear and tear on the picture. In this set, it might be because black and white is easier to compress, but everything seems to have either been kept up or bumped up for this release. The audio sounds quite sharp and the picture doesn’t seem to be deteriorating at all. Lastly, the opening and ending credits seem to have some dirt on them, but for some reason that doesn’t bother me like it would if it was in the episode itself.
Audio
Dolby Digital: English - Mono. I didn’t hear any audio pops in this show’s soundtrack although there seems to be an underlying bed of crackling noises. I had to turn up my player about halfway but once I did that everything played really well. They haven’t done much too this soundtrack which probably explains why my one speaker TV was able to handle it so well. What amazes me is how much poise and control of inflection Clint Eastwood had even back in 1959.
Package
They present Eastwood and the other members of this cast in pastel-like colors on the front of this amaray case. This is actually somewhat misleading since this show is in black and white, but I guess that the fans of it really won’t care too much. The back lists out a short description of what Rawhide: The Complete Second Season is about, three pictures from the episodes and some technical specs. All four discs that store the 16 episodes have been economically placed in this clear amaray case, and their episode information lines the inside wall of the packaging for this case.
Final Word
It is hard to describe what makes Rawhide such a good show, but I am going to venture that it has a lot to do with Clint Eastwood. He is such a strong actor who brings a great deal of levity to his roles. He really knows how to turn on the charm in order to disarm other characters, but he also knows just how much he needs to turn things up to put the fear of the lord in them. It is this calculated strength that has made him the icon that he is and its also this same strength that has helped him as a director. However, this show is also filled with strong supporting characters (the aforementioned Fleming and Brinegar are two solid examples), and the people who were cast villains opposite Eastwood did a great job finding players who could match the strength that he puts across.
Beyond all this, Eastwood and Co. all seem to be very at home in the western genre. It is as if they are soaking up the landscape while holding it at bay from engulfing them. Rawhide: The Complete Second Season is a must own for western fans young and old.
Rawhide was released .
