A young Clint Eastwood is a quick-thinking cowboy named Rowdy. He presents himself as a nice guy, and perhaps a bit naïve at times, but underneath the cover he is quick and clever. Watching the young Clint Eastwood here shows that he had a natural talent for acting and great potential. It's nice to see him in a role that wasn't the typical tough guy of few words. Watching a few episodes of this show, I can really understand what the big deal was all about.
"Incident of the Dust Flower" is one episode in the series that features the cowboys at their best and most generous selves. A woman rides into camp asking for help for her injured father. Without the slightest hesitation, the men organize a group to set out to find her father. Once they find him, they agree to let them ride along until they reach their destination which happens to be on the way. By the end of the episode, the main plot point of the story draws to a close as Pete Nolan agrees to play the part of her fiancée, in order to help her face her relatives back home and avoid having to live with the reputation of an "old maid." She figures it would be much easier for her reputation if she lived on as a widow, but they settle on a rather elaborate plot to have Pete pretend to get drunk and argue with her, after which she would call off the fake marriage. That's a whole lot of help for a stranger, but incidents are interspersed throughout the episode to show that the cowboys aren't pushovers. During a poker game, they catch the woman's father cheating during a card game. They force him to take off his jacket and prove that he isn't hiding cards. Clint Eastwood's character cleverly diffuses the situation by telling the men to call it a misdeal and to divide the pot. All the while he shows the father his "insurance" against him trying anything funny, as he managed to pick up one of the cheating cards before the other men noticed.
Playing the part of someone's fiancée is going pretty far to help a stranger. But then, this is feel-good TV fare, for sure. The cowboys never let a day end without a resolution to the day's problems. They're hardened by their daily work, but kind-hearted gentlemen at heart. If it were in vogue to glamorize cowboy life during the time in which this show was made, Rawhide had to be one of the best shows around.
A lot of different accents are attempted, and they sound pretty good. Maybe they're not accurate, but they're charming. The new characters that come into the trail don't usually seem like one-sided stereotypes either. But with the time period this show was made in, you may run into some more general stereotypes that are offensive today, i.e. what they've done with American Indians. All I can say for this is that you get the feeling that they were showing them in what would have been considered a favorable light at the time. So really, maybe nothing here is accurate or realistic. Even so, I was surprised at how much depth the "guest" characters displayed during each episode. For a TV show, they seemed a little more complex than you would expect. You don't often get the feeling that you're watching the same show over and over.
The scenery, despite being set in a relatively flat western prairie setting, is varied and really brings you into the show. Sometimes you can tell the men are on a closed stage, but a lot of the show is filmed outdoors. Even with the trouble they must have gone through to shoot outside, they packed a lot of excitement on the screen: galloping horse chases, gunfights, as well as various backgrounds and old west towns and camps. While I can think of a lot of older syndicated shows that relied on a single closed set and a lot of looping stock footage, Rawhide doesn't seem to fall into that as much.
Rawhide: Season 2 doesn't offer any special features, as seems to be the trend for these CBS DVDs. There are some previews for upcoming CBS shows, but as always, I'm going to call those commercials and not a feature. With 4 DVDs and 16 episodes, there is plenty to keep you occupied here. The main characters are pretty easy to peg in a few episodes, so you won't feel too lost if you are stepping into Season 2 without having seen Season 1. This is classic, feel-good cowboy cinema that you're just not going to see anymore. It isn't a long and winding story, just a group of easy to digest mini-stories where the good guys win at the end of the day.
