Annie Oakley 4 DVD Set (TV Series)

The video quality is about what you can expect from source material from this era, but I enjoy the old tv shows from my childhood. But just one question for Amazon, why do you list the two supporting actors and leave out the star GAIL DAVIES?

I'm not a big fan of the Annie Oakley television series from the 1950s but I think it is entertaining enough and my wife likes it much more than I do (she remembers actually watching while it was new and it was one of her favorite programs, while I never saw any of the stories until a little over a year ago). I bought this twenty episode collection to rotate with other vintage TV programs which we watch on Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) mornings. We already owned eleven episodes of Annie Oakley, and this collections only duplicated five of those, so we now own 26 of the 82 episodes of the syndicated series which is a darned good start toward having the complete series, but I doubt the complete series will ever be offered for sale because apparently some of the episodes are in Public Domain and some aren't.

I imagine anyone who would consider buying the 20 episode collection has some familiarity with the series, even if it is only having seen some episodes as a child and remembering that they were entertaining. They are still entertaining, if you have never seen Annie Oakley previously. The principle characters, Annie herself, her younger brother Tagg, and Deputy Sheriff "Lofty" Craig, who is more or less courting Annie, are all well cast. The storylines are fairly juvenile and endings are often predictable but there are also a couple of unusual stories, and usually a bit of humor that is actually humorous, a few episodes features actors who were well known then or became well known later on (Keye Luke, Alan Hale Jr. and Slim Pickins, for example). There is a good deal of western action: shooting and riding, with Lofty proving some fisticuffs, but everything is rather bloodless and justice always prevails or crime and chaos, and sometimes over prejudice as well. Annie is a sort of proto-feminist and deserves a place in television history as a strong role model for young women, but she really doesn't seem much different than most female characters from the fifties.

For some reason, the ten episodes on the first of the two discs are well preserved and have nice clear images and good soundtracks, some of the episodes on the second disc are too dark, or have a bit of visual static, or a few seconds missing here and there but the soundtracks haven't obviously suffered. Basically the first disc is superior to most "vintage" television fare which hasn't been remastered and the second disc is somewhat iffy. Young Jimmy Hawkins, who plays the kid brother Tagg was small and cute in the first year of production, grew several inches before the second season started, and had quite a growth spurt before the final episodes; most of the material on the first disc is in roughly broadcast order but Hawkin's size changes radically from episode to the next on the second disc and is a bit disconcerting if you watch more than one episode at a sitting.

All-in-all, I'm satisfied with the collection because I never expect material from the Public Domain to be remastered and most of the episodes are in good or far better shape, and the series itself was also above average and holds up better than many other western series which lapsed into the Public Domain. The price is also very reasonable and I consider the two disc set a bargain, and it adds some welcomed variety to our weekend mornings. I certainly wouldn't mind having another ten or twenty episodes of Annie Oakley but I don't realistically expect that to come to pass, but it would be nice if it did.

I have enjoyed my Annie Oakley DVDs. It brings back a lot of childhood memories, as we used to rush home from school so we could watch her show.
Mrs. J. Long