One of the stranger episodes of Wagon Train's one 90 minute season has Frank McGrath and Denny Miller kidnapped and forced to work as slaves by a Chinese dowager princess with the married name of O'Rourke. Carol Lawrence made to age and be Oriental plays the widow.
John McIntire sends Robert Fuller to search for his missing cast members and Fuller has some familiarity with the legend of a mini-Chinese empire in the west. He locates it and fight his way in.
His life is spared because Fuller looks like the Irish sea captain who rescued her decades ago from a slave market where bandits had captured her and were selling her. That Captain O'Rourke married her and took her to the American west where he built a ranch like the Ponderosa in a secluded valley.
Once he died she however reverted to being a Manchu princess with all the prerogatives that entails. Like slavery. Something America just fought a war to abolish.
Of course the Wagon Train crew's arrival is responsible for the downfall of Lawrence's world. How that happens is for you to see.
Fuller's a man with a mission who admires Lawrence as a survivor. But his duty is clear.
As for Lawrence, a remarkable makeup job is done, no trace of her Occidental origins is there. She's made up like Flora Robson in 55 Days At Peking where she played China's Dowager Empress.
One of the stranger Wagon Train episodes I could not really buy it, but I did like the flashback sequence where Robert Fuller plays her lusty Irish sea captain.
John McIntire sends Robert Fuller to search for his missing cast members and Fuller has some familiarity with the legend of a mini-Chinese empire in the west. He locates it and fight his way in.
His life is spared because Fuller looks like the Irish sea captain who rescued her decades ago from a slave market where bandits had captured her and were selling her. That Captain O'Rourke married her and took her to the American west where he built a ranch like the Ponderosa in a secluded valley.
Once he died she however reverted to being a Manchu princess with all the prerogatives that entails. Like slavery. Something America just fought a war to abolish.
Of course the Wagon Train crew's arrival is responsible for the downfall of Lawrence's world. How that happens is for you to see.
Fuller's a man with a mission who admires Lawrence as a survivor. But his duty is clear.
As for Lawrence, a remarkable makeup job is done, no trace of her Occidental origins is there. She's made up like Flora Robson in 55 Days At Peking where she played China's Dowager Empress.
One of the stranger Wagon Train episodes I could not really buy it, but I did like the flashback sequence where Robert Fuller plays her lusty Irish sea captain.