Am I Missing Something?

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I remember watching "Death Valley Days" back in the sixties on Saturday afternoons with my father and my five brothers. I have only recently begun watching the program as I can now receive it on the Western Encore Channel on cable. I really appreciate this show because it a western that features more than just cowboys & Indians. There are plenty of episodes that focus upon prospectors, missionaries, newspaper reporters, teachers, naturalists, telegraph operators and mail deliverer. The action takes primarily in San Francisco and the state of California but the viewer is has taken to the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. It is always fun to spot the actors on the show who were on their way up or down in Hollywood. I even saw a very young Clint Eastwood on an episode just recently.

Somewhere in the offices of the 20 Mule Team Borax company sits some television gold. Death Valley Days, the longest running syndicated show on television contains some fine dramas, made better by the fact that these were true western stories, no frills added. Take a look at the directors and writers lists for the show. You'll find in the credits any number of B picture western directors who found work as the B western died out on the big screen, same with the writers.Not to mention the players and for a real western feel the show had as its first host character actor Stanley Andrews known as the Old Ranger. Andrews brought a real feel of the old west to his job as host. Even when some rather more well known Hollywood names like Ronald Reagan, Robert Taylor and Dale Robertson took over the hosting duties, you always knew you were watching three well known movie stars. With Andrews it was like sitting by the fireside listening to tales from the past from a beloved relative.Robertson was from Oklahoma and could never shake the western image no matter how hard he tried in his career and he eventually went with the flow. Taylor and Reagan were both leading men, Taylor of A films and Reagan of B films from their respective studios. But both had a real love of horses and the west and would just as soon have been cowboy heroes at their studios instead of the career paths that were chosen for them by Louis B. Mayer and Jack Warner respectively. All of them fit the role of host well because of their backgrounds.This is another show that TV Land channel ought to grab. Or at least the country music channel which has now taken to showing films occasionally. They can't do better than this.

In Western Canada,when I was about 7 or 8,we used to see it on Saturday or Sunday afternoon,when television was fairly new in the North and not everybody had one.But my dad had a good job with the Telephone Company,so we always seemed to have the latest electrical gadgets.Westerns,in 1958 were going strong but I especially remember and liked the haunting bugle call,the particular black and white reception,and our television itself,with the genuine Borax 20 Mule Team model carefully placed on top of it.I think the Stanley Andrews era was the best,because the actors were a product of post WW2,and the scenes were of a completely natural western landscape,especially the striking area itself,in which it was indeed filmed.I didn't see the later episodes because we moved but in the 60's the world did modernized pretty fast and the old western towns and people,and war heroes,were becoming only a memory. I hope they roll out the episodes soon so I can build my own 20 Mule Team and get back to some real western television.

In the early 50s, this show had some wonderful episodes. I believe most of the early episodes, in black & white, were based on true stories. Later, they included more 'legends' and the show eventually was produced in color. I quit watching it during its later years, when color came in, Ronald Reagan was the host, and the stories got flimsier -- although in some of these later stories you can see some young actors who later went on to become Hollywood stars. My favorite host was the original 'Old Ranger'.