Search - Legendary Lawmen: Bat Masterson/The Deputy on DVD

Public domain episodes of two TV Westerns favorites

Robert Huggins | Suburban Philadelphia, PA United States | 12/18/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I fully empathize with P. O'Neill`s plight. This release contains two episodes each of "Bat Masterson" and "The Deputy." The episodes included are:

Bat Masterson: Stampede at Tent City, The Fighter
The Deputy: The Hard Decision, The Return of Widow Brown

These episodes have appeared on other classic TV Westerns compilations. The reason for this is that these are the only episodes from these series that have slipped into the public domain. Consequently, anyone who can get their hands on a print can release these episodes without having to pay royalties to the original copyright owners. That is why you will see these episodes offered by multiple releasing companies.

As for the episodes, they are nice examples from each series and Henry Fonda does appear in both episodes of "The Deputy." The prints utilized for this release are not from the original film elements but rather syndication prints, so the audio/visual quality is not up to the level that one would normally expect from official studio releases. The episode "The Hard Decision" appears to be slightly edited, but the other three episodes appear to be complete.

My rating is based primarily on the entertainment value of the episodes.
"

Did we really accept such stuff?

Rodney G. Stevenson | South Australia | 11/12/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I'm glad I didn't buy the series, as the quality is shockingly fuzzy. I can't believe it was so bad when originally broadcast: it must have suffered from poor storage surely. But at the cheap price, is worth buying just for the theme tune! And perhaps to see just how callow we were to watch such series all those years ago."