Monday saw the passing of Richard Donner, director. The Omen and Superman were his feature films. The Goonies and Lethal Weapon were also among his works. Another thing is that they are a small part of Donners filmography. Donner began his career in network television. Whether you look at the runtime, episodes or shows, Donner directed more TV than he did in his 45-years of feature filmmaking. He carried the same approach he learned in network television into his transition to theatrical films. In an Archive of American Television interview, Donner said that he was able to meet a deadline and stick to a budget, much like a director-for-hire TV.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt is difficult to see Donner's early work, but it is possible to view his attempts at making things happen. Only a handful of episodes from highly successful shows, such as Perry Mason or The Twilight Zone, are legally accessible to stream. It's a shame because Donners early work is filled with great performances and striking shots. For example, the scene of Harry Dean Stanton playing around with a noose during his episode of Dick Powells Zane Grey Theatre. This was his second TV production. This guide will show you how to watch Donner's first five years on TV. It also includes information about where and how to view his early TV work. You'll see that the networks do a terrible job keeping their history public, even though they have streaming services.AdvertisementSubscribe to the Slate Culture newsletter and receive the best movies, TV, books, music, etc. directly to your inbox. Signing you up was not possible due to an error Please try again. To use this form, please enable jаvascript. Email address: I would like to receive updates on Slate special offers. You agree to our Privacy Policy & Terms by signing up. Thank you for signing up! You can cancel your subscription at any time.Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. Paramount Plus is the natural home of Zane Grey Theatres CBS series, but it won't be there. While the first three seasons were released on DVD, Donners' episode, So Young the Savage Land (starring both Claudette and Harry Dean Stanton), has not been made available for home video. The full episode is available at Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications, along with original ads.June Allyson and the DuPont Show. Another CBS early show, which is not available on their own streaming network. June Allysons was produced by Powells Four Star Television, which was headed at that time by Aaron Spelling, a television legend. Donners' episode, Emergency, features Robert Vaughn playing a young surgeon who must operate on the chief surgeons child. Although it has not been released on YouTube, the video can be found online.Another anthology series, The Loretta Young Show, is not available on the original network streaming service. However, this time it is NBC and not CBS. Donner directed five episodes that were all filmed in 1961. They are all available on Shout! Factory's 2013 DVD box set. Quiet Desperation is a Donners episode that stars Young as a woman whose husband has been pressured to move to Japan. It has now made it to YouTube. Woodlot is the episode with the most intriguing cast (Ellen Burstyn & Charles Bronson). You will need to pay for the DVDs.Wanted: Dead or alive is another Four Star production by CBS and another show that's inexplicably not available to stream anywhere. This is despite the fact that the show starred Steve McQueen, and was the inspiration for the fictional TV show Bounty Law in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. You can get the complete series on DVD. Donners six episodes include appearances by Warren Oates and Cloris Leachman as well as Noah Beery Jr. and Mary Tyler Moore.Route 66 is the first Donners show that can be streamed legally. IMDb TV offers it free of charge (with ads). It was shot all over America and Donners episode with Nina Foch as guest star was filmed in Spring Grove State Hospital, Maryland.The Tall Man is an NBC series that featured Barry Sullivan and Clu Guilagar as fictionalized versions of Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and other characters. It's not available for streaming on Peacock. The series was released on DVD in 2011. Donners episodes, Petticoat Crusade, and The Leopards Spots can all be found online.Bette Davis was on Wagon Train three times, as three different characters. Donner directed her last appearance on Wagon Train, The Bettina June Story. However, unless you are lucky enough to catch the episode airing on MeTV (which is unlikely as 1 in 284Wagon Train ran long) Donner will not be able to direct it. There is no way to trade money with copyright holders to legally watch the episode. The fifth season of the show's DVD is no longer available. It also cannot be streamed. You can find it through other legitimate sources.Robert Taylor stars in The Detectives, a Four Star-produced crime drama. There has been no home video release of the series, except for a German language-only DVD. Never the Twain was Donners' episode. It featured Mark Goddard, a preMod Squad member, and Adam West, a preBatman Adam West. Both of these characters were series regulars. If you don't speak German, good luck with it!The Rifleman. Richard Donner directed seven episodes for this Four Star / ABC production. Chuck Conners plays the role of a father raising a son within New Mexico Territory.Have Gun Will Travel was a CBS production. However, you wouldn't know it from Paramount Plus. Paramount did release a DVD set with all 225 episodes. Five of them were directed by Richard Donner. However, they are not available on any streaming service.Sam Benedict, NBC's legal drama, was released on a Warner Archive DVD. However, it is not available elsewhere. Edmund OBrien starred as a San Francisco lawyer. Donners' six episodes featured guest stars like Nina Foch and Eddie Albert.Philbert was an ABC pilot about a cartoonist who created Donner. It featured Donner working with Friz Freling as animators. It was released on home video in 2005 as part the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. It is not legally streamable because Frelings involvement.The Eleventh Hour was a Dr. Kildare-inspired series about psychiatrists. It aired on NBC for only two seasons. In the second season, the network had to replace Wendell Corey as the original star with Ralph Bellamy as the permanent second choice, since Corey couldn't keep sober. Warner Archive released the original season on DVD in 2016. However, Donner's three episodes are still available.Donner directed the final episode of ABC's WWII drama Combat!, No Trumpets, No Drums. It is available on DVD. You can also purchase the entire series. However, it is not currently available on any streaming services.The Doctors and the Nurses' production history is truly remarkable. It began on CBS in 1962 with an hour-long medical drama called The Nurses. After two seasons, it changed its title to The Doctors and the Nurses. Then, CBS changed the title to The Doctors and the Nurses. The title was then changed back to The Nurses. The format changed to a half-hour soap opera. ABC changed networks and ABC produced 385 more episodes before the show went off the air. It is not available in any format. Richard Donner's second season episode, The Helping Hand, is the only one.Star Treks Gene Roddenberry was the first to create The Lieutenant, an hour-long drama on the Marines that airs on NBC. It is not available on streaming services. You can only watch Donners 2 episodes on Warner Archive's 2012 DVD release.The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, stars a 12-year-old Kurt Russell, and Robocops Dan OHerlihy. It was produced by MGM Television and ABC, both of whom are still in business. It is not available for streaming or viewing in any format, despite all this. The 22nd episode of The Day of the Picnic, directed by Donner, is it good? It's terrible? It's hard to say.You've likely heard of the Twilight Zone. Donner directed six episodes including the classic Nightmare at 22,000 Feet. It's easy to see his work. The entire series is now available on Paramount Plus. You can also rent or purchase it from any other digital video service.Mr. Novak was an NBC drama starring James Franciscus. It received a Warner Archive DVD release of its first season. This includes five episodes Donner directed, as well as the episode with Frankie Avalon. However, Donner's two episodes from the second season are still unavailable.The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. joins The Twilight Zone, one of Donner's few shows that you can rent or purchase from any video service. Donner directed four episodes in the first season and made a brief appearance in one.Donner was the director of an ABC pilot about Yellowbird, a suspense series about Caribbean fishermen. It starred All in the Familys Carrol Olson. You won't be surprised to hear that Yellowbird is no longer available. This is despite the fact that this show was one of the most popular and long-running from this time period.Donner directed three episodes for Gilligans Island's first season, a departure from his usual westerns and procedural dramas. Everyone loves Gilligans Island. Donner's work can be rented or purchased from any digital video provider.Perry Mason joins Gilligans Island and The Twilight Zone. You can watch it all online, and Paramount Plus offers it free of charge, including Donners first three seasons.Donner directed four episodes for ABC's WWII drama 12 OClock High, starting with the second season premiere. The network ordered that Robert Lansing (star of the first season) be killed and replaced by Paul Burke. This was an unsuccessful attempt to attract younger viewers. Although Burke was older than Lansing's, he still looked younger. It is still available on Heroes & Icons, with some of the episodes landing on YouTube. However, it is not legally rentable or purchaseable in any format.Donner's three-season one episode of Get Smart, the Mel Brooks spy comedy, can be found at the digital video site of your choice.AdvertisementAdvertisementThis is the total output of Richard Donners first five years, excluding his 1961 feature X-15. This includes 25 shows, two of which were unsuccessful pilots. It totals 74 episodes and 51 and a quarter hours of television. His theatrical features, which were released between 1961 and 2006, total 39 hours and 52 mins of screen time. This is not including Superman II:The Richard Donner Cut. Six of the 25 shows Donner directedRoute66, The Twilight Zone and Gilligans Island are currently legal to rent or stream. These shows are long-running, with Donner directing more than one episode. However, it's only 25% of Donner's journeyman television work, and none of them is available in the free Netflix, Hulu or HBO Max selections. You can buy DVDs and troll YouTube for more, but not all of it is free. This is yet another reminder of how streaming services can distort and diminish the history of television and film, despite providing endless hours of content. You can find Richard Donner's early TV work by going to his website.
