Thomas Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery has been a work in progress for HBO and National Geographic since 2005. For instance, the title for The Adventures of Frontier Fremont, starring Dan Haggerty, suggested the 1976 movie would focus on the Pathfinder, but it played more like Grizzly Adams 2. Brady Bunch dad Robert Reed played Frémont in Disney’s 1977 Kit Carson and the Mountain Men, and Frémont turned up as a character once more in a 1966 episode of Death Valley Days, played by Sergeant Preston of the Yukon star Dick Simmons. “Pathfinder” Frémont is Richard Chamberlain’s star portrayal in the 1986 miniseries Dream West (Warner Archive), which also featured Rip Torn as Fremont’s frequent collaborator, Kit Carson.ĭana Andrews played Frémont as a supporting character in 1940’s Kit Carson (United Artists), with Jon Hall in the lead. – Courtesy CBS / Shout! Factory –įor all of the pathfinders’ importance in the settling of the West, the films about those great pioneers comprise a short list indeed. The show lasted less than one season, yet shines today on DVD. Serling convinced CBS to air a realistic Western, The Loner, starring Lloyd Bridges, but the creator was ahead of his time. Rod Serling first made a commentary on the “soft” Westerns appearing on TV through “Showdown with Rance McGrew,” a Twilight Zone episode in which a Westerns actor (played by Larry Blyden, above) encounters the ghost of Jesse James.

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