I rented this in a gas station in the VHS days thinking I was getting a real movie but it did not take like to realize it was two episodes of the Virginian spliced together. I guess they edited it pretty good but it was not what it was sold to be. I just hope the performers got some residuals from this piece of deception.
shareSometimes I look at IMDB before viewing a film, sometimes I don't. In this case I didn't, mainly because I came across it on YouTube when about to watch another Western.
It didn't take me long to realise that it was going to be a let-down, despite Bronson and Marvin starring. Then I got puzzled by vaguely familiar footage of the bank raid, characters (not least in the gang) who seemed to come and go, and James Drury looking different from scene to scene. Having read others' comments I now understand - up to a point!
At least it took me back to the 1960s when I viewed some of the 249 episodes of "The Virginian". Like a couple of others here on IMDB, I started to wonder about dates, and was puzzled because I recalled one episode in which the Virginian left Shiloh to fight in the Spanish-American War of 1898, and this jarred with the apparent time-line of TMMITW.
The Virginian was one of those rare shows that ended not because of dis-appointing ratings. As I remember, that was when the FCC decreed that the networks had to give the local stations 30 minutes for local programing. See how well that worked out. The network, thus having only three hours in the evening to broadcast, did not like the idea of one show, The Virginian, taking up half of the evening since it ran 90 minutes.
This was a show almost like Law and Order later on in that actors came and went and the show went on. The only two consistent stars were James Drury and Doug McClure. They reformatted it the last year to put more action in it by having Lee Majors join as another hand and the new owner was Stewart Granger as the managing partner of the ranch as it had been bought by investors in England. I think it could have gone on longer if the bean counters had not gotten in the way.
Also, that was the same year the CBS decided that more edgy programming like All In The Family was what we should be watching and not westerns and more family oriented shows. Funny how a lot more of the shows that the suits did not like live on in reruns compared to the edgy shows that they thought we needed to watch. Also, funny how the networks still don't get it and are losing ground but still keep trying to shove garbage down our throats and insult our intelligence and our standards of suitable family fair. Thank God for satellite, cable, Netflix and all of the choices we now have. I may get the wording wrong but as the French say, "Viva le difference!"