Wagon Train (TV Series) The Estaban Zamora Story (1959) User Reviews

The old country

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 28 December 2017]

In this third of four appearances on Wagon Train Ernest Borgnine plays a Basque immigrant going west to settle with his three sons and raise sheep. The sons have found work with sheep rancher Robert Armstrong. But one of them was a wild child and the other two, Philip Pine and Leonard Nimoy can't bring themselves to tell him that the youngest was knifed to death.

Borgnine is a big, goodnatured, and friendly guy, popular with the rest of the Wagon Train passengers. But the Basques are an old race of people and they do have an honor code from the old country that requires the family seek vengeance when one of their own is slain. Borgnine starts his own investigation and he does not like where it is taking him.

Ernest Borgnine is oustanding in this role and gets good support from the Wagon Train regulars and the rest of the cast.

Wagon Train Season 3 Disc 1

[schappe1 · 9/10 · 25 May 2024]

The Stagecoach Story Sep 30, 1959 The Greenhorn Story Oct 7, 1959 The C. L. Harding Story Oct 14, 1959 The Estaban Zamora Story Oct 21, 1959

The show now introduces its most well-remembered musical theme, written by Jerome Moross, which was used for seasons 3 through 8. The first season used a brief fanfare which was fine, as far as it went. The second season was a snappy show tune, which they probably thought they could make money with. But the classic Moross theme, (which was the subject of a lawsuit as he's used part of it for a 1959 film called the Jayhawkers), is perfect for their show. It's onomatopoetic, suggesting a wagon wheel turning over and over, with a background theme suggesting hope and drama.

Season three begins as Season 2 did with a trip back to Missouri to form the next wagon train. But instead of going by sea, this time Major Adams, Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster are taking the stagecoach - driven by Flint McCullough! Also along are Debra Paget, in her second appearance, playing a different character this time- a Spanish dancer who is smuggling guns for the Mexican revolution on the coach, which she and her associates want to divert the coach deliver to representatives of Porfirio Díaz. This seem doubly strange: how many guns could be transported in a coach? And how much difference would that amount of firepower have made in a revolution? Gold to buy guns with might have made more sense. And the hero of the revolution, (I assume against European import Maximillian), was Benito Juarez. Diaz was the dictator of Mexico from 1877-1911. Yet the Wagon Train heroes agree to help them and we, the audience, are supposed to root for them. Then, after delivering the guns, Debra and her grateful minions escort the stage to St. Louis: quite a trip. It's an exciting episode unless your demand it makes sense.

The Greenhorn Story features Mickey Rooney as an author who has written about the west but has never been there. This episode is instructive as to what preparations are necessary for a wagon train, (what to bring and not bring, how to handle wagons and the procedure for circling them. Unfortunately the rest of it is about the unfunny and painful to watch the author makes in trying to learn about the west. He falls for a young woman on the train who quite suddenly contracts cholera and even more suddenly, fully recovers. It's intended to inject a serious note in a comic episode but doesn't come off seriously.

CL Harding is a reporter Major Adams has allowed on a train under the assumption that she is a man. She's played by Claire Trevor. This set sup a predictable conflict between he old-fashioned major, who has strong ideas about "a man's job" and the woman reporter. Why he would think it took a man to report on things I don't know. Ms. Harding proceeds to organize the train's women and get them to strike, Lysistrata-style. The episode is full of 'Goll-darns' from the perpetually fuming major, who in between his outbursts he begins to fall for the lady and is disappointed when she leaves the train, potentially to become the wife of her editor. A key point is that once the reach Wyoming, they are in a state where women have the vote. In 1969, the all-male legislature become "the first place in the world to incorporate women's suffrage" per Wikipedia.

Ernest Borgnine returns to the show, not as Willy Moran, (from the 1957 premiere), but as Esteban Zamora, a Basque sheep famer who ahs joined the wagon train to rendezvous with his three sons who have, (for some reason), preceded him to America to set up the family to work for a big sheep rancher, (Robert Armstrong). But one son has been killed by another, (he's played by Leonard Nimoy). The other living brother, Phillip Pine, convinces him not to confess to the tragedy. Esteban wants to go after the murderer of his son but the older brother tries to convince him that things are different in this new country: a family is not obligated to seek revenge on a murderer. This is strange when you think of all the westerns where the hero is seeking revenge for the murder of a close relative. This one is a good character study with fine acting by the principles.

Mr. Spock shows emotion

[cpotato1010 · 5/10 · 10 November 2018]

The guest stars of this episode are Ernest Borgnine, Leonard Nimoy, and Philip Pine.

The acting is good, although the writing is a little confusing. It seems like everyone knows the father, Estaban Zamora, but it also seems this is his first visit to America.

There are some good scenes, like where Estaban rescues the lamb from the mountain lion, and then gives it to a boy with the wagon train.

But others, like the bar fight and the confrontation with the "sheep rustler", are standard western boilerplate.

Ever notice how everyone is a dead-eye shot, even a novice like Estaban, but only the bad guys die?

If you have ever seen the few episodes of Star Trek where Mr. Spock showed emotion, you have most of the part of Leonard Nimoy's character, although the scenes with Ernest Borgnine in the church were better done.