Wagon Train (TV Series) The Captain Sam Story (1965) User Reviews

They won't make a landlubber out of her

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 30 June 2020]

Cathy Lewis's colorful portrayal of a Tugboat Annie type captain of a river ferry is what sparks this Wagon Train story. Her adopted son Robert Santon has come home, but it's to dry dock mom.

She' got a touch of consumption and the doctor says dry climate or die. Santon gets the whole Wagon rain crew into tricking her to a trip to Arizona for the climate.

She's a stubborn old girl, but her love a life lived on water is genuine and infectious. This is a wonderful life affirming story

Touchingstory

[SusanJL · 9/10 · 4 June 2024]

This is a very different sort of story for Wagon Train that is an interesting change of pace. Cathy Lewis aka "Captain Sam" spins a lot of tall tales about the sea that turn out to be ficticious. It's how she would have loved to have lived her life. She coughs a lot, and they say it's consumption aka tuberculosis.

Sadly, in real life Cathy Lewis died from lung cancer in 1968 - just 3 years after this episode was made in 1965. I wondered if she (and others) knew she had terminal cancer when this episode was made. If so, in a sense I guess she really wasn't acting but channeling a real life situation!