Classic TV Flashback: Riverboat (1959)

Riverboat

Debut: September 13, 1959

Starring: Darren McGavin; Burt Reynolds
Synopsis: These are the voyages of the riverboat Enterprise. Captain Grey Holden and his pilot, Ben Frazier, guide the stern-wheeler along the Mississippi River in the 1840's.

Trey: Riverboat ran from 1959 to 1961 on NBC. Wikipedia dubs it a Western, and I suppose at times it engaged in Western themes and stock elements, but it's set within mostly settled areas of pre-Civil War along the major rivers of the Midwest. I became aware of Riverboat thanks to discussions with this blog's founder, Jim, and this post he wrote in 2014 suggesting it had an influence on Star Trek.

We watched episode 3 of the first season "About Roger Mowbray" from September 27, 1959. It was from a story by Star Trek alum Gene L. Coon! In it, a young man (Robert Vaughn) has his marriage and his father's wealth-seeking schemes endangered when a spurned ex-fiancée (Madlyn Rhue) claims that he married his new wife for money and threatens to reveal his deceptions!

Jason: Jim's idea of a strong influence feels right, having viewed two episodes, both with stories penned by Gene Coon. The other episode I watched (mislabeled by whoever posted it to YouTube as episode 3), also with a screenplay by Coon, had a pronounced ST vibe, or at least a strong Gene L. Coon voice.

A brief moment in this episode made me laugh out loud, when, while rushing to seek medical help for one of the passengers, the captain orders his crew to crank the Enterprise up to full speed. We then cut briefly to the engine room, where Dick Wessel as engineer Carney Kohler shrieks out to his frenzied crew to give the engines everything they've got!

Trey: The harried engineer. It's a staple. This episode was very much in the Wagon Train mode, where the story primarily revolves around the drama of passengers on the riverboat. Our stars, the captain and crew, only play incidental roles in that. I wonder if this was the standard for the series?

Jason: This pretty much holds true for that other episode I watched, though the personal involvement of the captain was a bit more central to the plot.   

Trey: Let's talk about that Captain! McGavin's Captain Holden is set up as a heroic man of principle in the episode, but throughout most of the episode he's sort of passive and refuses to head off developing trouble--though at times he takes actions that seem ill-advised and possibly make it worse! In many ways, he's more the catalyst here than the protagonist.

Jason: What kind of screwball would allow a spurned ex-lover to retain their recently brandished Derringer after (barely) talking them out of murder? How about letting an actual (attempted) murderer remain at large after displaying clear signs of derangement?

To get us acquainted, this episode presents a moment early on when, apropos of nothing, a mule breaks through a stable wall into the street as Holden strolls by. The mule's owner strikes the animal viciously while trying to rein it in. Holden, appalled at this cruelty, immediately unleashes a fusillade of knuckle sandwiches followed by an impassioned speech to the dazed and prone animal abuser. This man is a knee-jerk, two-fisted moral enforcer! He is not shy when triggered by abuse of any kind, is strongly anti-murder, and also seems to be a rather staunch supporter of the second amendment. 

Holden is a fun character made delightful by McGavin's performance, but is perhaps more quirky than the late fifties audiences were up for given the show's relatively short run and middling ratings. To my eye, McGavin brings a singular kind of light ironic detachment to many of his roles. Here as the captain, he sometimes seems poised to break the fourth wall and address the audience directly in his exasperation with the chicanery of his various passengers. 

Holden's super-power -- he seems to round the corner with uncanny timing, forever interrupting plot-centric conversations or coming across unsavory scenes that incite his previously mentioned moral outrage.

Trey: Yeah, he's got an almost supernatural ability to also turn up just at the end of the dramatic scene. Of course, the whole episode shows a bit of the soap opera trope of "I was happening by and just couldn't help but hear the last of that.." to seamlessly transition to another scene.

In the rest of the cast we have Robert Vaughn as the titular Mowbray who will of course go on to play Napoleon Solo in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. series and a haunted and hunted killer in both The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Battle Beyond the Stars. His jilted ex, Cassie, is played by Madlyn Rhue who also played Khan's love interest in the Star Trek episode "Space Seed." Mowbray's wife, the heiress Jeanette Mowbray, is played by Vera Miles who was also in The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--as well as being Miss Kansas 1948.

Jason: Vaughn delivers an ace performance here, somehow remaining sympathetic despite highly questionable behavior. Likewise with Rhue, Cassie also behaves terribly, but remains redeemable due to her charisma and talent for melodrama. 

Then there's Burt Reynolds, who plays the helmsman of the Enterprise. He doesn't have much to do in this episode, but when does get a moment of screen time keeps 85% of his charm tied behind his back. Maybe he's better in other episodes, the other one I've seen was after his departure from the show.  

My verdict: I'm finding these decades-old tv shows fascinating from a cultural standpoint and Jim's Star Trek theory added another layer of interest I probably wouldn't have otherwise. That said, this was an entertaining show, a well acted, well crafted, and well written piece of melodrama. 

Trey: I agree. It was exactly what I expected, but works, and I can see why it appealed to Jim.