Don't listen to the negative reviews

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The short lived television series "Cimarron Strip" lasted one season on the air and it was originally broadcast in prime time on Thursday nights for the 1967-1968 season running 90 minutes in length(including commercials) and had some strong competition. "Cimarron Strip" went up against ABC's "Batman", "The Flying Nun", and "Bewitched" and it went up against NBC's "Daniel Boone", and "Ironside". The series was created by Christopher Knopf who was the executive producer of the show under Philip Leacock, Douglas Benton, and John Manley and produced by Bernard McEveety and Leonard Freeman for Whitman Productions in association with the CBS Television Network. The series produced 23 episodes in color that aired from September 7, 1967 until March 7, 1968. Reruns of all 23 episodes were aired during the summer of 1971 three years after it was canceled by CBS."Cimarron Strip" is one of only three 90-minute weekly Western series that aired during the 1960's(the others are NBC's The Virginian, and for one season Wagon Train) and the only 90 minute series of its kind during the 1960's to be centered primarily around one lead character in every episode. The series theme music was written and composed by Maurice Jarre who also scored the Oscar winning themes to Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. The series was set in the late 1880's in the Cimarron Territory where Marshal Jim Crown(Stuart Whitman) maintains law and order in the new territory with his two deputies as assistants one was the Scotsman MacGregor(Percy Herbert),and the young lad Francis Wilde(Randy Boone) and the caring young woman Dulcey Coopersmith (Jill Townsend).Several great writers ranging from Austin and Irma Kalish, Christopher Knopf, Jack Curtis, Dan Ullman, Stephen Kandel, Herman Miller, Mel Goldberg, David Jones, Hal Sitowitz, and Harlan Ellison. Veteran directors from Boris Segal, Vincent McEveety, Alvin Ganzer, Gerald Mayer, Richard C. Sarafian, Don Medford and Herschel Daugherty contribute to the great episodes that this series produced. Big name guest stars included Warren Oates, Andrew Duggan, Jack Braddock, Robert J. Wilke, Morgan Woodward, Steve Forrest, Royal Dano, Richard Boone, Joesph Cotton, Suzanne Pleshette and L.Q. Jones to name a few that appeared on this action packed Western series.The best episodes "Journey To A Hanging", "The Beast That Walks Like A Man", "Till The End Of The Night", "The Search", "The Battle of Bloody Stones", "The Roarer", "The Deputy", "The Judgment", "Nobody", "Heller", to name a few. Even 50 years later this was without a doubt not only ambitious but exciting to watch too. Cimarron Strip lived up to its title and then some.

What is with these people who give such wonderful reviews of this show.? I became a viewer with high expectations having seen Stuart Whitman in big budget westerns such as Commancheros with John Wayne. This show -first of all- had poor lighting. Did anyone bother to pay the light bill?Often...the action, (which was very little, not enough for a half hour much less 90 minutes) was at night and you could not even tell what was going on . The cast was total stereotypes with Percy Herbert, Randy Boone, and Jill Townsend. It appeared that the entire show was filmed on one acre of desert and a saloon. This was no ..Virginian- which had everything- great acting,plots, guest stars,unpredictable big budget production..It was the same thing every week, 5 minutes of action at the end.Stuart Whitman would chase some psycho villain and get either shot or beaten up terribly and miraculously survive. ..The sheriff didn't seem to live anywhere just roamed around This show has poor melodramatic plots.And CBS became cheap and used the same theme music on every western on TV

The 23 (90 minute) episodes of the CBS television western "Cimarron Strip" were originally broadcast during the 1967-68 television season, running from 7:30PM to 9PM on Thursday nights. In 1967 a 90-minute time slot seemed reasonable as "The Virginian" (1962-1971) had enjoyed considerable success with this expanded running length; 248 episodes in total. And before that "Wagon Train" made a portion of its episodes this long. Unfortunately for "Cimarron Strip", by 1967 the television western was on its way out and viewers never really warmed up to the show.Unlike "The Virginian" and "Wagon Train", "Cimarron Strip" is not structured in the anthology style, a format better suited to the longer format because it emphasizes guest stars and a large cast of intermittently appearing characters. If anything "Cimarron Strip" went to the other extreme, focusing on only two regular characters and a single theme; the other regular cast members rarely appear in anything more than supporting roles. While this narrow focus is a poor match to the longer running length, it is also what makes the series so special. If not television's all-time best western, "Cimarron Strip" is certainly the most ambitious. The episodes are set in the 1880's and revolve around the interplay between Marshall Jim Crown (Stuart Whitman) and Dulcey Coopersmith (Jill Townsend). Crown is a somewhat world-weary lawman tasked with maintaining law and order in the vast Cimarron Strip (named after the Cimarron River and comprising parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico). Dulcey is a compassionate and caring young woman from the East who has inherited (from her father) the local inn; a combination saloon, boarding house, and jail. Dulcey's innocence and goodness inspire the otherwise disillusioned Marshall, who in turn protects her from what he can and tries to put the rest in perspective for her. Dulcey is obviously symbolic of the arrival of civilizing forces to the frontier but in a larger sense she represents the loss of innocence process anywhere and anytime. The series is in many ways her coming of age story. It doesn't hurt that Townsend is hauntingly beautiful, with a refreshing natural look and a hair-style that swept the country during and after the premiere of the series.Moral ambiguity is the other regular theme, with guest stars often redeeming themselves with a final act of personal responsibility. Typically these characters are portrayed as individuals who have had to subordinate their basic goodness in order to survive in this tough environment.Almost every episode included several top quality and well-known guest stars, whose performances were always up to the task.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I recently discovered this show in reruns on Encore Westerns. I honestly never saw this show in its first run, and don't know how I missed it. Some of the best stories I've seen in Westerns, well directed, Stuart Whitman is very believable as Marshal Crown, tough and honest to a fault. I don't know how shows like this didn't last, yet Gunsmoke was on forever it seems. The Encore copies are around 1 hr 17 minutes each, so they appear uncut, and without commercials. The 1 1/2 hr format allows the story to be well developed and to have multiple twists. I am quite genuine in saying shows like this are non existent anymore. The prints are not great, especially when compared to Big Valley or Bonanza which appear to have been restored. Now I wish someone would run "Lancer", "High Chaparral", "Branded", "Have Gun Will Travel" among other old westerns.Cimarron Strip is top drawer among westerns right up with my personal favorite - "The High Chaparral".