This wonderful Wagon Train episode concerns one of the last of the Mountain Men, the true pioneers of the west in my humble opinion. If it weren't for people like Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, etc. we would not have a western part of the USA. Those guys who lived in and among the Indians and were in a distinct minority survived by grit and wits.
One of the last was the fictional Zebedee Titus still eking out a living in the mountains trapping beaver with the beaver now in short supply and civilization rushing westward as personified by the Chris Hale Wagon Train.
It's not easy being the last of your kind, having outlived all your contemporaries and the people now treat him as an anachronism at the town he stops at. But the youngest and oldest members of the Wagon Train, Michael Burns and Frank McGrath prevail on John McIntire to hire Neville Brand who plays Zebedee Titus as an extra scout. And Robert Fuller's got himself an injury anyway.
Brand's a cantankerous old cuss and he's slowing down a might at his age and his eyes aren't that good any more. But he turns out to have some value after all. And in the end he finds his proper place in the west he helped open up.
With his make up to age his appearance Neville Brand is a grand old mountain with a grand performance and he makes this episode one of the best of that seventh and only 90 minute season of Wagon Train.
One of the last was the fictional Zebedee Titus still eking out a living in the mountains trapping beaver with the beaver now in short supply and civilization rushing westward as personified by the Chris Hale Wagon Train.
It's not easy being the last of your kind, having outlived all your contemporaries and the people now treat him as an anachronism at the town he stops at. But the youngest and oldest members of the Wagon Train, Michael Burns and Frank McGrath prevail on John McIntire to hire Neville Brand who plays Zebedee Titus as an extra scout. And Robert Fuller's got himself an injury anyway.
Brand's a cantankerous old cuss and he's slowing down a might at his age and his eyes aren't that good any more. But he turns out to have some value after all. And in the end he finds his proper place in the west he helped open up.
With his make up to age his appearance Neville Brand is a grand old mountain with a grand performance and he makes this episode one of the best of that seventh and only 90 minute season of Wagon Train.
