Three Wagons          

February 25, 1959          The Annie Griffith Story 
March 11, 1959               The Vivian Carter Story 
June 24, 1959                 The Jenny Tannen Story 


For sisterly solidarity, it would be nice to imagine that all three 
of these women were on the same wagon train. 
Well, why not? 
After all, all three stories aired during the same season. 


THE VIVIAN CARTER STORY 
If there was anything that distinguished Wagon Train 
from other tv westerns, it was that it could lather up 
as good a soap opera as any show in the afternoon. 
Robert Horton could strike exactly the right facial expressions, 
fraught with concern and emotion, in reaction shots; 
and surprisingly, for an actor known for Ford and frowns, 
so could Ward Bond. Even the dialogue and the music 
left no doubt that in the slow trek along the westward trail, 
travelers were as much in danger from melodrama 
as they were from diseases and desperados. 
The Vivian Carter Story was written by Peggy And Lou Shaw, 
with the help of Kathleen Hite. 
Miss Vivian Carter journeys West from Boston 
to marry her fiancé; but upon reacquaintance, 
she is shocked to realize that he is alike and akin 
to her rakish and charming John Russell-like father. 
Even the savvy Kitty was shaken to discover her daddy 
was a con man; imagine the effect on naive Vivian when she learns 
that she is to see the nave with a knave after her kitty. 
Vivian, you see, is prim & proper & bookish, and has read herself 
to a spinster's age (no matter that it was Browning she read), 
while being devoted to her long-ailing-till-death Daddy-O. 
Speaking of corpus:  pressing age, desperate straits, 
and maintenance of one's delicacy amid the rough 
are of course not unmet in Hite's exploration of sister Stellas. 
But never mind the literary elements in this episode-- 
for those of us who like to bathe in the afternoon, 
The Vivian Carter Story is wonderful soap. 
Additionally, tv westerners will appreciate the iron in the casting: 
Vivian meets an alternate love interest 
in the wagon--or rather, wedding--train, 
and he is played by... Lorne Greene! 
What a dangerous proposition, we all know, 
because all of Ben's Bonanza wives were doomed to die. 
Why, one of them actually died while traveling with... a wagon train! 


July 18, 2006 


Copyright © 2006-2011 E. A. Villafranca, Jr.  
All Rights Reserved