Wagon Train (TV Series) The Melanie Craig Story (1964) User Reviews

Everyone has Myrna's interests at heart

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 8 February 2018]

Beautiful widow Myrna Fahey who lost her husband in an accident on the trail has no shortage of people looking to help her among the men and the women of Chris Hale's Wagon Train. This particular Wagon Train story had the accent firmly on comedy.

Leading the pack of suitors is widower Jim Davis who has a trio of rowdy boys to raise. He does it rather effortlessly as the rest really stumble over their stupid selves. That actually includes Wagon Train regular Denny Miller who has assigned himself her special protector. The others are gambler Tony Young, school teacher John Craig, and mama's boy Roger Torrey.

Torrey's mama is Marjorie Bennett who with her friend Amzie Strickland are Fahey's self appointed advisors among her own sex.

Myrna Fahey was one of the most beautiful women ever on the big screen and small and had she come along during the era of the big studio system she would have been a major star. She died sadly too young at the age of 40. She seems oblivious to all but Davis. In fact while the other four are making fools of themselves they don't even notice Jim Davis is winning the race by a mile.

You have to ask would all this attention have been paid to say Phyllis Diller?

Matthew, Mark, Luke

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 27 February 2018]

I wasn't too enamored with this episode. I'm a Jim Davis fan, and he certainly did well as the father of three roughneck boys in need of a mother. But the outcome seemed too obvious. We knew Davis' character Rudd Basham would ensnare a recent widow to marry him and rear those sons. During their unusual courtship, Basham exhibits chauvinistic attitudes about women which are supposed to be seen as charming.

Another problem with the scenario is that Melanie Craig (Myrna Fahey) is almost young enough to be Rudd Basham's daughter. Plus she has four handsome young men close to her own age also attempting to court her. The four men take turns proposing marriage to her. One of them is scout Duke Shannon (Scott Miller). So why should she choose a life with Basham and three unruly sons, when she could pick one of the other guys and have her own children?

Obviously writer John McGreevey is trying to promote family values. By having Melanie pick Basham and his brood, she is seen to be doing the nobler thing. It just doesn't seem realistic she'd sacrifice the rest of her life for such a rough hewn bunch, especially when the father didn't know how to properly love a wife. McGreevey realizes the trouble in selling this whole concept, since the coda at the end has Chris Hale and the other men on the train explaining to poor Duke why he lost the girl to Rudd Basham. The dialogue actually has someone tell Duke that Melanie rejected him because he didn't have three kids to raise!

Another problem I had with the episode was how forced the humor seemed. There were at least two major brawls between Duke and the other young men, vying to spend time with Melanie. Then when they found out her choice in marriage, they had another brawl about who was going to be the best man. The action-packed slapstick came across as filler, plus much of the fighting wasn't choreographed too well and certainly looked fake. There was also the part where Basham's three sons kidnapped Melanie, so she would decide to marry their father. It was a clumsy attempt to be cute and make us smile, when we all know a woman in that predicament would run for the hills the minute she was freed.