Rawhide (TV Series) The Boss's Daughters (1962) User Reviews

Strange story

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 2 November 2019]

This was one of the stranger stories on Rawhide. Eric Fleming is about to start a new cattle drive and he's stymied at the start. Rancher Paul Richards is blocking him from using his range to cross.

But in fact he's willing to let him, in exchange for Fleming's sister-in-law Dorothy Green marrying him. She and his daughter's are visiting before the cattle drive starts. More than that he wants to adopt daughters Candy Moore and Barbara Beiard.

Richards is one weird dude. He lost his wife and children in a cholera epidemic years back. Why he thinks he can appropriate another man's family though is strange.

You won't believe who solves this problem.

Spending time with his girls

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 14 January 2023]

In this episode we learn more about Gil Favor's ongoing life as a trail boss and as a father or two young girls. Gil's backstory is quite interesting, and when the writers tap into that, we get a richer characterization. His wife died and he turned over the raising of his girls to the wife's sister, their aunt.

Aunt Eleanor (Dorothy Green) has been rearing Gillian (Candy Moore) and Maggie (Barbara Beaird) back in Philadelphia. A season earlier the audience first glimpsed Gil's sister-in-law and kids when he visited them back east. This time they arrive out west to be with dad on the trail. The premise comes with built-in drama because the daughters are being brought up by Eleanor to fit into high society. A dusty cattle drive is probably the last thing she wants them to experience. But Gil is determined to spend time with the girls.

What complicates things is that Aunt Eleanor meets a handsome man who proposes marriage. He offers to adopt the girls and give them a full-time father. This puts him directly at odds with Gil, since it may undermine, possibly even eliminate, Gil's relationship with Gillian and Maggie. To some extent I think the writers were experimenting with the idea of freeing Gil from his parental responsibility but don't quite go there. So ultimately the aunt does not marry her new suitor and things go back to how they had been before. At the end, Eleanor returns east with Gillian and Maggie, continuing to raise the girls for Gil.

Gil's daughters are mentioned in later episodes but never seen again, which I think is a shame. They could have been brought back when they were older, like when one of them was of marrying age. At the end of the seventh season, Gil Favor leaves the series (due to Eric Fleming's exit) and it is not stated why he has left the herd for Rowdy to take over. But I like to think that he retired and became a full-time family man again in Philadelphia.