Week of July 17: "The Big Valley" Goes Big-Time

Interesting news this week of efforts to turn "The Big Valley," the hit Western drama that ran on ABC during the late 1960s, into a feature film.


The program starred Barbara Stanwyck, no stranger to the silver screen, as Victoria Barkley, the head of a California ranching family. Playing her children and stepson were Richard Long (later to star on "Nanny and the Professor"), Peter Breck and two newcomers: Lee Majors and Linda Evans. Majors, of course, later starred in "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Fall Guy," while Evans became a major star on "Dynasty." Incidentally, all of those series were ABC series.

Besides the cast, another star of the show was George Duning's wonderful theme, inspired, no doubt, by Western films such as "The Magnificent Seven."

The first two seasons are available on DVD; Season 1 can be seen on Hulu.com.

What will a movie do with the Barkleys? It will be interesting to find out.

**********************************************************************************

Fun footnote to the United States Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor to head for the Supreme Court; Sotomayor, a big fan of the series "Perry Mason," mentioned one episode that inspired her, which prompted comedian-turned-Senator (Isn't that redundant?) Al Franken of Minnesota to mention the one episode in which Mason lost a case. Neither he nor Sotomayor knew the title, but it was later identified as "The Case of the Deadly Verdict."

That episode is available on the special DVD released two years ago by CBS on the 50th anniversary of the series.

See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!