The series has more time to develop characters and present complex stories without the hurried rushed feeling that was in the original film.
And the film had most of the flaws of the time it was made, crude stereotypes and cliches, and things Hollywood has thankfully left behind like whites playing Indian and glamorizing the traitorous Confederates.
One reviewer called this a liberal western. True enough, and so was Arness's other great series, Gunsmoke. Both with plenty of sympathy for minorities, a conscience informed by the civil rights movement, and some of the earliest and best attempts to be anti racist.
HTWWW the series shows unprovoked massacres of Natives, mixed race marriages and children, religious minorities like Mormons and Amish. It shows Confederates trying to carry out a lynching. And it shows women having to raise families and run farms without men.
TV at its best, like Roots.
And the film had most of the flaws of the time it was made, crude stereotypes and cliches, and things Hollywood has thankfully left behind like whites playing Indian and glamorizing the traitorous Confederates.
One reviewer called this a liberal western. True enough, and so was Arness's other great series, Gunsmoke. Both with plenty of sympathy for minorities, a conscience informed by the civil rights movement, and some of the earliest and best attempts to be anti racist.
HTWWW the series shows unprovoked massacres of Natives, mixed race marriages and children, religious minorities like Mormons and Amish. It shows Confederates trying to carry out a lynching. And it shows women having to raise families and run farms without men.
TV at its best, like Roots.