Big Valley - Season 1
by Arnold Laven, Bernard McEveety, Joseph H. Lewis, Joseph M. Newman, Joseph Pevney
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DVD details
Actor: Barbara Stanwyck, Lee Majors, Linda Evans, Peter Breck, Richard LongDirector: Arnold Laven, Bernard McEveety, Joseph H. Lewis, Joseph M. Newman, Joseph Pevney
Brand: STANWYCK,BARBARA
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Box set, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1532 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-16
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Big Valley - Season 1
DVD Review: A family saga
Summary: 4 Stars
In Stockton, California, and the surrounding "Big Valley," the name to conjure with is Barkley. Victoria (Barbara Stanwyck), six years widowed (her husband Tom was killed in a battle with railroad hired guns while laeding his neighbors in resistance against a land grab) is the matriarch of a family with interests ranging from cattle to mining to lumber and vineyards to river shipping, factories, mills, and a foundry. Her oldest son Jarrod, about 30, generally easygoing but with a strong feel for ethics and justice, is a lawyer with offices in San Francisco and Stockton and takes care of the family's legal and financial affairs; four-years-younger second son Nick (Peter Breck)--proud, tough, hot-tempered, physically imposing (he can actually lift Jarrod right off his feet), sometimes loud and impulsive, but ferociously protective of his family, their interests, and their name--ramrods the various businesses, chiefly the ranch, and is a hard worker who is respected by every man on the payroll; youngest son Eugene (Charles Briles), 21, is attending college at Berkeley; and throaty-voiced, curvaceous daughter Audra (Linda Evans), 18, says of herself, "Mother says I'm shameless, Jarrod says I'm spoiled--[but] Nick...he understands." Into their lives rides the young man (Lee Majors, later known as "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Fall Guy") who gives only one name--Heath--and claims to be Tom Barkley's "bastard son," who was raised in the dying mining town of Strawberry and has worked as everything from a crab- and salmon-fisher to a hired gun. Much of the first season revolves around his efforts to prove himself a true Barkley and make a place for himself in both the family and the Valley itself.
Like "Bonanza," this is primarily a story about a family's conflicts, both within and without its own house, but Heath's illegitimate birth (a very mature element to introduce on series TV in the mid-'60's: I think this was the first time I ever heard the word "bastard" spoken on broadcast) adds a fresh angle. Victoria accepts Heath almost immediately, and he is drawn strongly to her from a very early point; he can't settle right away on what (except "ma'am") to call her, but "The last thing I'd ever want to do is hurt [her]." He also bonds tightly with Nick and Audra, the two siblings most like himself and (presumably) their father (once when someone describes him as "the old man's [woods] colt," Nick--who does menacing very well--says in a cold growl, "Nobody says that about him to me"). And occasionally things out of his past pop up to cause trouble for the family, as in "The Guilt of Matt Bentell" (when he recognizes the brutal C.O. of the Civil War POW camp where he spent seven months), "The Death Merchant" (the man who shot Tom Barkley's murderer returns for a visit and proves to be a merciless murderer who once came close to killing him), and "Into the Widow's Web" (his boyhood love, now a singer married to an exhibition sharpshooter, comes to Stockton and he is accused of murder when the man turns up dead).
What makes this series especially enjoyable is that it doesn't always rely on violence to make its plots run: there may be a fistfight in almost every episode, but not every conflict ends with gunplay. And the plots themselves are often unusual: a retired general (Andrew Duggan) whom Nick knew during the War turns out to be a charismatic clone of the filibuster William Walker; a mustang hunter in whom Audra becomes interested proves to be the leader of a band of murderous night-riders; Nick is bitten by a rabid wolf and goes off by himself to try to spare his family the ordeal of watching him die; an earthquake traps Victoria in the wine cellar of the local Catholic church along with a pregnant Indian girl and a hard-drinking, discontented ranchhand (Charles Bronson); a strike at the family's mine reunites Heath with an old friend; a band of Irish immigrants claims it has purchased title to a large chunk of Barkley land, and Nick makes an uneasy common cause with its leader to find out the truth; Nick's fiancee turns out to have a psychological flaw that may mean tragedy for the family; a middle-aged outlaw who has suddenly decided he wants to learn to read and write kidnaps Victoria to serve as his teacher; Jarrod learns that a man whose conviction he won as a prosecutor was in fact innocent, and sets out to make amends; Heath is trapped under an overturned wagon and his only hope is Victoria, who must find someone--in the uninhabited forestland high above the ranch--to help get him out; a boat from the family's line, which sank at the close of the Civil War with a large cargo of gold, is unexpectedly rediscovered.
Like most of the Westerns of its period, BV has a tendency to play a bit fast and loose with history (there's mention of a Modoc reservation near Stockton, where none existed), but what I find most irritating is that the writers couldn't seem to decide on when the series was supposed to be happening: at various points during first season the year is given as (or implied to be) 1876, 1882, 1878, 1873, and 1880. (Since Nick and Heath both fought in the War, an earlier date seems most consistent.) Stanwyck is among the high points of the show: though she starts out as a rather low-key, almost inconsequential character, she soon reveals herself as an iron hand in a velvet glove (watch her dealing with the family's proud Californio-Spanish neighbor, Don Alfredo, in "Winner Lose All"), and before too long she's shown to be the kind of "tough broad" Stanwyck always specialized in playing--and a genuine mother bear when one of her "cubs" is threatened.
Notable names are plenty in the guest list, as was true of most of the "adult" Westerns of TV's Golden Age: among the faces you'll see are Martin Landau, Kevin Hagen, Buck Taylor, Arthur O'Connell, Jason Evers, Ford Rainey, Richard Hale, John McLiam, Virginia Gregg, Katharine Ross (in a role not unlike that she played in the "Gunsmoke" episode "Crooked Mile"), Henry Wilcoxon, R. G. Armstrong, Richard Devon, Anne Helm, Warren Oates, Paul Fix, Nancy Olson, Ronny Howard, Eleanor Audley, Nicolas Surovy, John Dehner, William Shatner (as an old law-school buddy of Jarrod's), James Whitmore, Albert Salmi, George Kennedy, Harold J. Stone, Royal Dano, Richard Anderson, L. Q. Jones (who probably showed up on every Western on the tube at one time or another), Robert Walker Jr., Claude Akins, Anthony Zerbe, Morgan Woodward, Malachi Throne, Bruce Dern, John Anderson, Jeanne Cooper, and Karl Swenson (these five each appear twice, though not in the same role). Also familiar are several of the sets, including the jail and Long Branch interiors from "Gunsmoke." (The series also shares the tendency of Westerns of its period to use a number of sound-stage "exteriors," often distractingly and inexplicably sandwiching them between actual outdoor shots--why it had to, when the actors were already out in the open air, is bewildering.) It's also distracting to see the sheriff--who says he's been on the job for 10 years--played by at least four different actors, including Mort Mills and Ken Lynch. But it's intriguing to see that several of the segments turn on, or at least address, the resentment that often lies close under the surface when people are seen as too rich, or too big, for their britches. I had forgotten how much I really enjoyed this show, and seeing it again I know why it still has an active online fandom.
Description of Big Valley - Season 1
Follows the adventures of the Barkleys, a family of wealthy ranchers in 1870's California.Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 16-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVD
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