User Reviews

Before Eddie Albert and Edgar Buchanan were residents of Paul Henning's mystical rural America on Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, the two of them traveled the Wagon Train together in the John Darro Story. Also along was Margo, Eddie Albert's real life wife who got to act with her husband on one of those rare occasions.

Albert plays the title role, a man who got a limp in the fighting of the Civil War and is now traveling west with his wife Margo and their son, Kim Charney. But when they pick up an old drunken desert rat on the trail in the person of Buchanan, he exposes a terrible secret Albert's been keeping from his son and the Wagon Train members.

That secret being he's akin to something like Jason McCord in Branded, a guy who ran out on a previous Wagon Train that was nearly massacred. Buchanan was one of the few survivors though he lost his family and it's what's made him a drunkard.

It's a good episode from the series and a chance to see Oliver Wendell Douglas and Uncle Joe Carson in vastly different roles before they took up residence in Hooterville.

I just watched this episode on MeTV. The plot involves the wagon train picking up a drunken derelict named Briscoe. Briscoe delights in telling the wagon folk about he survived the John Thurman massacre. Supposedly, Thurman deserted his wagon train and left everyone to be wiped out by the Indians.

The train already knows all about Yellow John Thurman because a passenger named Lucas sings The Ballad of Yellow John Thurman. The song is requested by a boy named Tommy Darro, who is an extremist annoying little brat. He loves telling everyone how his dad, John Darro, was a great hero in the Civil War. As it turns out, Darro is really Yellow John Thurman. Needless to say, Briscoe wastes no time in exposing him as the coward. When Indians threaten the train, the drunken Briscoe wanders off. Darro goes out to find him, and just as he does, the Indians find them and take them back to their camp. Flint locates the Indian camp, but can Brisoce and Darro be rescued?

Edgar Buchanan plays Briscoe. He is best known as Uncle Joe on Petticoat junction. Prior to becoming an actor at the age of 36, Buchanan had a successful dental practice. Eddie Albert is John Darro. He is best known for being Oliver Wendell Douglas on Green Acres. Eddie's real life wife, Margo, plays his wife in this WT episode. Kim Charney plays the insufferable Tommy Darro. He was a very successful child actor, but gave it up at 19 to go to college. He went to medical school and became a successful surgeon.

Don Durant plays Lucas, the singing wagon train member who makes this episode a musical and who has to change the lyrics of The Ballad of Yellow John Thurman before the episode concludes. Durant was a night club singer with a great voice before becoming an actor. He is best known for starring in his own western series, "Johnny Ringo," which do-starred Karen Sharpe.

A good early WT episode, even if the coincidences that occur in it are a bit far fetched.

I've decided to watch the entire runs of two somewhat similar shows from the classic era of TV westerns: Wagon train, (1957-65) and Rawhide 1959-66). Unfortunately, the Wagon Train DVDs I've sent for don't include seasons.5 & 6. I'm going to alternate watching a DVD of episodes from one series and a DVD of episodes from the other. I'll be traveling north from Texas to Missouri on the cattle drive and west from Missouri to California. To make sure my text is of the required length, I will review the entire DVD each time.

"The Les Rand Story" October 16, 1957 "The Nels Stack Story" October 23, 1957 "The Emily Rossiter Story" October 30, 1957 "The John Darro Story" November 6, 1957

The trend of actors who were mostly doing movies at this time continues. Sterling Hayden plays Les Rand, Marc Stevens Nels Stack, Mercedes McCambridge Emily Rossiter and Eddie Albert John Darro. Hayden had starred in The Asphalt Jungle, Johnny Guitar, Suddenly, The Last Command, The Killing and Zero Hour!, which was later reimagined as Airplane! In the 1980's. Stevens had bene a Film Noir actor in the 1940's and a film noir actor on TV in Martin Kane, Private Eye and Big Town. McCambridge had won an supporting actress Oscar for All the King's Men and had recently been nominated for the award for Giant. Albert, before he became associated with Green Acres in the 1960's, had been in Roman Holiday, Oklahoma, Teahouse of the August Moon, and, in this same year, The Sun Also Rises and The Joker is Wild.

The first and last of these four stories are the memorable ones. Charley Wooster gets injured in a wagon accident, (he apparently grew his beard while laid up in bed and decided to keep it), and Flint McCullough goes for a doctor. He can find only one town with one but that doctor is out of town, covering various remote locations and Flint has to await his return. Meanwhile Hayden, a recent releasee from a penitentiary arrive in town and befriends McCullough - until he reveals that he wants to kill the doctor, in whose care his wife died while he was incarcerated. Hayden gives a typically larger-than-life performance.

The Nels Stack story lacks credibility. Stack is a former Army Colonel who has joined the train with several wagons and men to guard them, (we don't know what). They have guns but he's become a pacifist, which angers a recalcitrant Confederate veteran played by Kevin Hagen. The problem is, conflicts still surround Stack, who's refusal to fight them only means that others have to do so, including his own men. Stevens looks ill-at-ease in an outfit that is neither western nor film noir.

The Emily Rossiter story is forgettable, with McCullough encountering the title character and her daughter, (played by Susan Oliver who in no way resembles McCambridge), who are under the violent thumb of a man, (John Dehner), Emily unwisely married after her husband died and his two sons. It's predictable and less interesting than it sounds and the story has nothing to do with the wagon train.

The John Darro Story is also predictable but intense and well-acted. Darro was part of a previous wagon train that got wiped out and he was branded a coward. He now has a different name and his son thinks he's a hero. Edgar Buchanan plays a drunken wanderer who was part of the same train with his now-dead family who recognizes Darro and denounces him before everyone. Naturally Darro has to redeem himself and he does. His wife is played by Eddie's real-life wife, Margo, who had had trouble getting work due to the blacklist. Eddie must have insisted she get this role.

I read the review by "ben-thayer" and agree completely. The only thing I would add is that the kid is so annoying, so grating on the nerves, so shamelessly "fake", I kept hoping he'd be kidnapped by the Indians. No such luck.