Memorable, crazy movie

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

We recently dumped cable; so much useless and never watched programming for too much dough. My wife installed (had it installed) an antenna and to my delight, through wafting around with the remote, I happened on a Laramie show in progress. I had never seen one. When all those westerns were popular, I was a teen and really didn't watch much TV then, and watched even less western type fare. Anyway, when I saw it recently, I was quickly riveted. I could not believe the verisimilitude of the show. All the little details of farm and ranch implements, the whole layout, including the period dress of the actors, the scenery, was perfect. Most of all, though, was the deep and gripping nostalgia for a time-and I remember it well- when the progeny of the people who conquered this land and made it fruitful, were portrayed without apology as the moral, strong, and brave souls they actually were. That time will come again, I'm sure, though I won't be here to see it, most likely. Laramie was neither Right nor Left. It was dramatized history, and done very very well. I receive it on a network called Gritz. I hope it stays on as long as possible. Hoagy Carmichael, a semi-regular on the show, apparently, wrote "Stardust," one of the most recorded songs ever. It bears no resemblance to what these sad days passes for music.

Out of all the many TV Westerns that there are to choose from in the 1950s and early-1960s, I personally rate Laramie as the absolute best of the very best.Very masculine, very rugged and very-very entertaining, Laramie was definitely a real action-packed TV show that easily ranks, in my books, as the ultimate epitome of the "near-perfect" cowboy-fantasy saga.Featuring plenty of guest stars and an excellent cast of regulars, headlined by Robert Fuller, as Jess Harper, and John Smith, as Slim Sherman - Laramie proudly showcased these 2 strapping and husky, young dudes who literally lived and breathed the true "Code of the West", a set of values which existed, just as they existed, in absolute accordance with the belief in loyalty, morality, and personal pride.Set (during the 1870s) on the very edge of a vast and spectacular frontier within the Wyoming Territory, Laramie was a serious and often good-natured show. It never skimped on the violence when it came to depicting the many hardships that were encountered by those pioneers who faithfully strove to tame the wildness of the great, old west.Filmed in b&w (with each episode running approx. 50 minutes), Laramie is definitely a show that I highly recommend to anyone who really appreciates a superb TV Western that stands tall above all the rest.

We Agree With You About LARAMIE & Jess Harper. In my youth I didn't take notice of John Smith until he came to Laramie. My family wasn't the kind to go out to movies, so catching up on some of those oldies is fabulous................................. You really can't compare them as one better than another. I think seeing Bob more discussed and talked about on his group has us pretty much in mode of admiring his work more because we have not all seen more of the stuff out there done by John Smith. There is one western on the western channel that runs quite often. I have it on DVD, but every time it's on, I have to sit and watch it (especially the saloon fight scene-Mary knows the one). Like Bob, John was very talented and could play good guy or bad guy equally well. And in many of the "draw" scenes, he was very proficient with the gun, as well. When he and Bob draw together, they are almost timed equally. If that was done by direction or by their natural talents, I can't say, but seeing John drawing on his own, he was very comfortable in doing a fast gun role. It's hard to believe that Slim was that fast with a gun, not being raised to be a gun fighter, to be a rancher. But back then, it was probably an asset to know you could hold your own.Looking back at both in other movies or TV shows, it seems that John was more able to be a different person for each role. Bob put a lot of Jess in so many of the characters he played. Even as a doctor, he had a few rough edges (apparently from his boyhood) and could stand up to a fight. Yes, he did play each character differently, but I always saw a little Jess in him, even those movies before there was a Jess. I think it's just Bob putting Bob into every role, really, and like he says, he's really Jess :)Both of our heroes were equally talented and did things somewhat differently, but both portrayed the characters they were playing to the hilt, both equally believable in their roles.I wish back then the censors weren't so radical. Okay, they're too loose now, but a little more use of their talents, there could have been some really hot scenes! You could see it in the scenes where they were limited to showing much fire. Could you imagine Laramie today? I wonder if we would appreciate it as much? It might have been those censors that helped keep it a quality show, maybe a bit too tame, but always pointing toward a good lesson learned.I was attracted to the superficial aspects of Laramie as a child. I was just going into my teens and I guess I was at that stage where girls go through liking "the bad boy" and Jess sure fit my bill. He was a good, bad boy. If you have to fall for a bad boy, it's great that he has some redeeming characteristics, Jess had that. I think I pretty much identified with Andy at the time. Admired Jess and felt Slim as more like a big brother. And yes, Slim was so very handsome. I'm sure I noticed back then, but my eyes were only for Jess at the time.Yeah, I have to say, trying to make a comparison of both of their abilities, they played their roles in their own particular ways, neither one better than the other, just different.Okay, I babbled long enough. I think I need a Laramie fix.

Before Laramie became infamously known as the location of Matthew Shepard's murder it was best known as the title of a western set there in old west Wyoming. The premise was young Slim Sherman as played by John Smith and his younger brother Andy (Robert Crawford, Jr.) trying to hang on to the family ranch after their father had been murdered by a cattle baron trying to grab the land.It was a tough go for the Sherman Brothers and the family cook Jonesy who was played by Hoagy Carmichael. But in that pilot episode a lone Shane like gunfighter Jess Harper showed up. The Shermans took him in and he became a family member with roots at the ranch. After that only fools messed with the Shermans especially if they knew that they had Robert Fuller to mess with as Jess Harper.Laramie was one of many towns founded as a rail depot of the Union Pacific. But into the hinterlands of Wyoming still one of our most rural states you got some place on horseback or by stage. And the Shermans had a franchise way station at their ranch which I'm sure supplemented their income during a lean year for cattle. It allowed for a whole range of stories combining the stagecoach way station with the ranch.Laramie had a respectable run of four years. Carmichael and Crawford dropped out and housekeeper Spring Byington and orphan Dennis Holmes joined the Sherman ranch. Bob Fuller went on to a good career, a stint on Wagon Train after Laramie was canceled and later a long run on the Jack Webb produced Emergency.John Smith had done a few films before Laramie and got a second lead in the John Wayne film Circus World. He dropped out of sight after that and some thirty years later I read in an obituary that he had died of cirrhosis of the liver. There's probably one awfully tragic story there.But I prefer to remember John Smith as Slim Sherman zealously guarding home and hearth with Jess Harper to back him up. Maybe we'll get to see Laramie again some day.