The Wackiest Wagon Train In
The West
(1976)
Directors: Jack Arnold, Earl
Bellamy, Bruce Bilson, Oscar Rudolph
Cast: Bob Denver, Forrest Tucker, Ivor Francis
From the time
after birth when we start to walk and talk, and start thinking
of things in a more rational method, the world seems like it's a
magical place. It seems to be a world where your mother and father are
the wisest and kindest parents a child could have, and also a place
where anything can go your way. But slowly and gradually, this
viewpoint gets clouded by doubt coming from the harsh realities that
inevitably happen to everyone. It probably starts during the day when
with your mother at a supermarket, she refuses your request to get you
a chocolate bar. And continues when you ask other things of your
parents, like why is the sky blue. But it's not just within your family
that a child finds they can't always get what they want. It comes from
various outside sources as well. Sooner or later, a child will find
from dealing with outside sources what it's like to be let down, and
will know the meaning of the term "rip-off". A friend of mine once told
me a personal story about such an experience. When she was a child in
Japan, she was a big fan of a certain animated cartoon broadcast on TV.
One day, she learned that a character from this cartoon show was going
to appear at a children's festival. When her mother agreed to take her
to this festival, she was naturally excited and couldn't wait to see
her animated idol on stage. So with the hundreds of other children at
the festival, she sat in her chair with great anticipation. Eventually,
the curtains opened, only to reveal an adult in a costume resembling
the cartoon character. Even at a young age, my friend realized right
then what a rip-off was.
I have suffered from my share of cons and rip-offs in my
life. Naturally, I try my best to have a lifestyle that will reduce the
risk of being rip-offed as much as possible. But I don't think that
anyone can reduce the risk to zero - there are too many rip-offs out
there that you can't completely avoid. Even in something seemingly
innocent as movies. When I was a child, I used to think that every
movie was a magical experience. When I subsequently saw Herbie Goes To Monte
Carlo, doubt started to creep in my mind, and when I later saw Herbie Goes Bananas,
I finally knew just what being ripped-off was like. Even after
experiences like that, I will admit that I still have a big appetite
for movies. But I've learned that you've got to be careful, you have to
do some research beforehand to weed out the bad movies that are offered
to you. In this review, I am warning you about a certain kind of movie
to be aware of. That kind of movie is television programming reedited
to resemble something like a movie. When the TV show The Man From UNCLE
first appeared, MGM edited several two-part episodes together and
released them
to theaters overseas. They even released at least one of these "movies"
to theaters in America. Western TV series have been the victim of this
con as well. The '60s western show Hondo
had two episodes edited together and was released overseas as Hondo And The Apaches.
Two episodes of The Virginian
- one with guest star Lee Marvin, the other with guest star Charles
Bronson - were edited together and released as The Meanest Men In The
West.
In an attempt to make the mishmash make sense, the narrative had to do
things like state a middle-aged Bronson was playing a character in his
early 20s.
By now, you have probably guessed that the movie I'm
reviewing here - The
Wackiest Wagon Train In The West
- is another example of those kind of movie rip-offs, and you are
correct. In the 1970s, syndication of new TV dramas and sitcoms not
seen on prime time on the big three networks was
the rage. In 1973,
there was one such TV show syndicated, a sitcom called Dusty's Trail,
which only lasted for one season. But a few years later, some
enterprising individuals saw the possible further exploitation of the
episodes,
possibly due to the fact that two of the show's stars - Bob Denver and
Forrest Tucker - were still well known from older shows in syndication.
So they edited four of the episodes together and released it to
theaters as The
Wackiest Wagon Train In The West. Incredibly, it did decent
business - I remember reading an ad in an old issue of Variety
boasting of the grosses in certain territories. I wonder if the
audiences felt ripped-off, not just for passing TV as a movie, but for
another reason that I will bring up later in this review. Anyway,
here's a plot synopsis of the, ahem, "movie". The setting is the wild
west, around the time that gold was found in California. The events of
the movie take place around a small wagon train making its way across
the west. The passengers include an older and wealthy couple of good
breeding, a smart and resourceful young man who knows about the latest
technology like telegraphs, and two sexy young women. Leading the wagon
train is a seasoned wagon master (Tucker), who is constantly frustrated
by his
well-meaning but bumbling and dim-witted sidekick (Denver.)
I can hear many of you out there, after reading about
those characters, saying something to the effect of, "Hey, this sounds very familiar." And all of you are
right. This enterprise is a blatant rip-off of the classic comedy show Gilligan's Island,
not just because Bob Denver is also in this cast, but also by having
the same basic characters. Actually, I'm not sure if it's fair to call
this a rip-off. You see, the producer and creator of Gilligan's Island (Sherwood
Schwartz, who also made The Brady
Bunch) was also the producer and creator of the Dusty's Trail
TV series that this "movie" is derived from. He probably thought that
if the same basic idea worked once, it would probably work again. But
since the TV show only lasted for one season, you can probably guess it
didn't work very well a second time. You'll get a confirmation of your
guess if you actually sit down to watch The Wackiest Wagon
Train In The West.
It's not just that the entertainment from the source is inept; in
making this "movie", new kinds of problems come. Take the first scene
of the movie, right after the opening credits. The movie jumps right in
the middle of things, and seems to think we already know all of the
characters and their situation. Apparently, the Dusty's Trail
TV either lacked an opening episode that properly introduced the
characters and their situation, or the people editing the episodes
together simply decided to start with an episode that appeared later in
the series' short run. This first episode was also a poor choice to
begin with because the characters of the wealthy couple don't really
show up until
their sudden appearance halfway through this first story, provoking the
audience in saying, "Who? What? Where did these people come from?"
Actually, the remainder of the editing of the four
episodes together is mostly better than you might think. There's
actually only one fade-to-black moment, no doubt intended by the
original TV episode to stop the action momentarily in order for a
commercial break. But all that effort to make the flow of the
production feel like a movie turns out to be for nothing, because (as
expected) when the last of the four episodes (oh, I mean "stories")
ends, the "movie" abruptly ends, leaving the fates of the seven
characters up in the air. There are other problems, like how several
times the number of horses the characters have changes from story to
story (and sometimes even from shot to shot), but I think you get the
idea how messy things got from editing four TV episodes into one
"movie". Next, I'll get into the production values. No doubt because
the show was syndicated and not picked up by a major American TV
network, the budget was lower than average. This probably explains why
quite a bit of the show was filmed on a studio lot, even during the
scenes where the action is supposedly taking place outdoors. This would
have been extremely obvious and distracting for TV audiences even back
in 1973. There is also a Native American village that we never get a
good look at, no doubt because they could only afford to rent a few
props. And don't get me started on the "bear" that plays a role in the
first story, since it is so tacky that it makes gorilla costumes made
in B movies during the 1940s look like the creations of Stan Winston.
It's then amazing that despite all those problems I've
listed, The
Wackiest Wagon Train In The West
still ends up being a hilarious and witty enterprise. Just kidding. I
admit I did smirk a few times at some gags, like when Denver's
character reads the welcome sign at the edge of a town that also
states, "Pop. 114", he wonders, "I wonder how old Mom is." Other than a
few isolated moments such as this, the humor is at best third-rate Gilligan's Island
slapstick, and at worst is gags that would have seemed hoary and lame
even to vaudeville entertainers of the 1920s. When Denver holds the
reins of the stagecoach's horses and yells giddy-up, you know that he
will have forgotten to fasten the horses to the stagecoach and will be
pulled off the stagecoach. When he and his friends find a telegraph
machine, he states, "Oh boy! A telegraph! I mean a real telegraph!
(Pause.) What's a telegraph?"
The movie even brings up the tired one
liner about giving someone a fair trial before hanging them. You might
think that at least kids (real
young kids) might find this movie funny. But it's not ideal
entertainment for more than just the lame humor. Although the other
parts of the movie seemed aimed at family audiences, the third story
involves the wagon party being threatened by two bandits who make it
pretty clear they want to rape
the party's two young women. Try explaining that to you kids, or
explaining about transvestitism when Denver and Tucker subsequently
dress up as women to fool the bandits, who proceed to fondle and kiss
Denver and Tucker when they are captured. While witnessing low points
like this in the movie, I wondered if it would have been better if they
had focused on the wackiest wagon train in the east. New Yorkers are more
sophisticated than the west coast, so it may very well have worked
better.
Check
for availability on Amazon (DVD) -
-
Check
Amazon for availability of original episodes of "Dusty's Trail"
See also: The Bang Bang Kid,
Evil Roy Slade, Rustlers' Rhapsody
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