Search - Lassie: A Mother's Love on DVD

Where Are the LASSIE Season Sets?

L. M Young | Marietta, GA USA | 06/05/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The occasional LASSIE episode releases Classic Media is giving us are like doling out eyedropper doses of water to a thirsty person. This disk contains three episodes having to do with mother love. In "The Runt," a second season Jeff episode, Lassie protects her remaining puppy by hiding it in a mine. In "The Wrong Gift," Timmy's Mother's Day gift is swapped with Willy Brewster's, and he has to find a way to repay the extra money that Willy's gift cost. (Willy's mom is played by series producer and former child star Bonita Granville Wrather.) "Lassie's Wild Baby" has Lassie mothering a cougar kitten (played by a Siamese kitten; VERY obvious). An interesting note: Jane Darwell of GRAPES OF WRATH fame plays the woman giving away kittens. These three episodes are syndication copies, but fairly complete and nice looking. But there is a stunning bonus feature on this DVD. The pilot episode to the LASSIE series were originally two filmed episodes: "Inheritance," which shows how Jeff came into possession of Lassie, and "The Well," an example of a typical episode. The dog who appears in the story is not "Lassie Jr.," who did the rest of the series, but "Pal," the original Lassie from the movies. Recently someone at Classic Media found a real gem in the LASSIE archives: a complete uncut, COLOR copy of "The Well," so for the first time you can see the Miller home and farm in color.



My advice to Classic: keep mining those archives for the uncut copies of the original shows and GIVE US SEASON SETS. Please!"

GIVE US "JEFF'S COLLIE"--ALL 116 EPISODES

B.K. Young | Iowa City, IA USA | 01/06/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The best of the "Lassie" television series was the first 116 episodes syndicated as "Jeff's Collie." Tommy Rettig, Jan Clayton, and George Cleveland all played their roles with great conviction and came off very believable. Those early scripts were far better written and the Jeff episodes had an emotional appeal that was never equalled in the subsequent years. The 3-episode "Jeff's Collie" DVD which Classic Media released in 2003 looked very good except for an edit in "The Inheritance" and a wavering sound problem in the last episode titled "Transition." It doesn't appear to me "The Well" episode was filmed in color, but "colorized" instead. I have a color picture of the original cast gathered outside of the icon farmhouse back door and, though the actors ARE in color, the farmhouse siding and back door are all in shades of grey. In the early days of B&W TV, settings were frequently done in shades of grey which photographed well for B&W before the advent of color. When Nickelodeon ran the series back in the '90s the prints looked like the 35mm films CBS originally aired. Subsequent runs on other cable networks looked like old, scratchy and faded 16mm prints and the shows were severely edited (butchered) to make room for more commercials.



I hereby cast my vote for Classic Media to begin releasing the first 116 shows from the 35mm masters intact without editing. I also would like to see the background soundtrack music by film composer Raoul Kraushaar become available on CD."