William Bendix starred in this show as Fred Kelly who worked for the Overland stage company along with Doug McClure as Frank 'Flip' Flippen. Flip was raised by Indians and had a reckless streak in him which the gruff Kelly tries to keep in check. The episodes I've seen are very entertaining and are a sort of mix of The Tales Of Wells Fargo but with some of the humour of Laredo. It's the banter between the older, gruff Bendix and the very youthful McClure which makes this quite a fun show. For example, Flip isn't as tied to the job as Kelly and sometimes has notions of leaving the job- in one episode to get married! Kelly isn't above conning Flip into taking 'one last job' for the company which always leads to him staying on. The show had a short run, lost in the glut of TV westerns, although the trend was past its peak. An entertaining show nonetheless.
Review of Overland Trail
