Even if westerns aren’t your bag, Zane Grey Theatre — Complete Season One comes highly recommended for the fans of its now-legendary stars, or the devoted followers of oft-forgotten character actors. Folks like Jack Lemmon, David Niven, Ida Lupino, Lloyd Bridges, Beverly Garland, Jack Palance, Walter Brennan, John Ireland, Robert Vaughn, Robert Culp — and just about every other supporting player from film and television that you can think of. Hell, in the first episode alone “You Only Run Once (aka The Hangin’ Tree),” I spotted Whit Bissell, John Hoyt, and Douglas Fowley alongside main stars Robert Ryan and Cloris Leachman.
A magnificent assortment of great actors aside, Zane Grey Theatre is just as enjoyable as any western series due to its direction and writing (many episodes of the series were written by future mega-mogul Aaron Spelling). Several episodes even caused a few new series to be made, and classic shows such as The Rifleman, Johnny Ringo and Wanted: Dead Or Alive came to pass springboarding from episodes of Zane Grey Theatre.
Zane Grey Theatre — Complete Season One comes to DVD via the effortless works of VCI Entertainment. All 29 episodes are presented on four discs in the original standard TV aspect ratio of 1.33:1. While the quality may not be truly “pristine” at times, it is usually quite good nonetheless and never reaches the point of being unwatchable. Accompanying the visual presentation is a Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono soundtrack which, while also not as “superior” as some perfectionists might wish for, is still enjoyable.
You really wouldn’t expect to find any special features on a title like this, but VCI went that extra mile once again and provides us with a pullout episode guide (included in the case) which gives the history of both Zane Grey and the series; an interview with Dick Powell’s son, Norman (26:52); an audio interview with author Christine Becker (14:43) about Four Star Productions; and several TV bumpers (1:20) for the program as well as some vintage Maxwell House television commercials (2:11) which are always a treat by themselves.
Well done, VCI. This’ll make a great gift for vintage TV and western buffs across the plains.
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