Route 66 (TV Series) Ten Drops of Water (1960) User Reviews

A Nice Twist

[zsenorsock · 7/10 · 28 February 2008]

This story has a nice twist. Usually the boys find someone in trouble and help solve the problem. In this case, in solving the short term problem, the boys help the Page family realize they CANNOT solve the long term problem, and perhaps the real solution is for them to quit and move away.

While motoring across Utah, the boys come across a young man (Tony Haig) selling his beloved donkey. Thinking the family just needs money, they buy it back and go to return the donkey to the kid at the Page farm. When they get there, they discover the reason the donkey was sold was because they didn't have enough water to keep it alive. If they don't get more water soon, either by drilling or buying water, the cattle and all the other animals will die.

The straight at it kind of script would have Tod and Buz solving the water problem, the family being grateful, and then everyone moves on. But Howard Rodman's excellent script is not so simple. It addresses the long term problem and happiness of the three Page siblings--the oldest played by Bert Brinkerhoff, with Deborah Walley as his sister and Haig as the youngest brother. Their family has lived on the land for three generations and are determined to make a go of it, despite the odds.

Corvette

[blkhwk41 · 7/10 · 6 March 2021]

It was a pretty good episode, as are most of them. Some appreciated more as years go on. But, the well drilling part where the Corvette 'motor' overheats-does Not speak very well for a new Corvette...

heart wrenching episode

[mbowyer · 9/10 · 24 October 2007]

This was a tough one for me to watch. The relationship between the boy and the mule is very touching. When Buz and Todd buy back the mule and return him to the boy's ranch they inadvertently cause the mule's demise as there is not enough water at the ranch to go around. The interaction between the family that Buz and Todd end up helping is quite good. The boy's older brother is stubbornly trying to save the ranch that has been in their family for more than 100 years at almost the expense of his family and their cattle. And definitely at the expense of their sweet mule. The scenes of the mule crying for water and how the episode ends definitely had me in tears. Don't know if I can watch this one again. The movie Harry & Tonto had a similar effect on me. As good as the movie is, I just don't know if I'd watch it again. It is just too sad. Can't stand it when bad stuff happens to animals in stories or life.

One of the Best

[robwoodford-83390 · 9/10 · 22 July 2018]

This episode is one one the best in the series. It haunts me a bit and will break almost anyone's heart. In short, it's well done drama.

One of the Best

[dougdoepke · 27 September 2017]

That distinctive name Overjack rang a 60-year old bell. I must have seen the episode on first showing since I was a fan of the series from the first. Now, on a second viewing, I'm really glad to share my appreciation of the entry. It's one of the series best, a richly human drama of a family hanging on amidst a bleak environment. The Paige family has had a cattle farm for generations and tradition is strong. Trouble is water from the well is giving out now and the prospects are bleak. But oldest brother Virg is too headstrong to contemplate selling and moving to where his younger siblings have a chance for a better life. After all, the only consolation in little Homer's life is his beloved mule, Overjack. Meanwhile, Buz and Tod are drawn in to helping fix the water well, the sole water source for the Paiges and their beloved critters. So, will the family be able to surmount this latest challenge and uphold the family tradition.

The barren visuals are riveting, including the isolated homestead, more like a shack. The plot's elemental enough not to require the usual contrivances and unfolds in seamless fashion. It really is man and woman against nature. Fortunately, the ending is thought-provoking and maybe even disturbing unlike the usual conventions of the day The drama's well acted, especially little Tony Haig as Homer. Truth be told, I did have trouble with beach bunny (Gidget) Deborah Walley as a farm girl. She's a shade too malt shop cute to be convincing. On the other hand actor Brinckerhoff could pass for Tony Perkins' younger brother. Overall, the 60-minutes is an occasionally wrenching human drama that I'm glad to revisit and share with others. Meanwhile, I'm still curious about that name Overjack.

After All These Years

[vbalum · 10/10 · 5 June 2018]

I remember my family watching "Route 66" when I was 5 or 6 in Brooklyn, NY. One episode that I vividly remember sent me into torrents of tears because of the picture of a young boy crying over his dead mule. I will never forget that sad black and white image bursting out at us from our pathetically small Emerson TV. My family and I were avid fans of the "Route 66" saga until its end in 1964,

I was 61 when I happened to watch this episode re-running on ME-TV in New York. As if I were that 5-year old again when I first viewed its original viewing, the tears flowed, but this time I knew why ----- because of the show's excellent and original writing, direction and bravura acting.

Bravo to the Golden Age of Television! BTW, my late cousin, Leonard Moran, also from Brooklyn, NY, wrote for the US Alcoa Steel Hour in the late 1950s. One of his original television screenplays, "One Red Rose for Christmas" with Helen Hayes was televised live and included one of the first TV appearances of a very young Patty Duke. It was televised twice on TV and I vaguely remember all our family members gathering around the miniscule black and white television in our tiny Brooklyn, NY apartment (you must remember I was not yet 4 years old) to watch my cousin's play. My cousin went on to write for other New York-based television shows, but when it was obvious that the future money was to made in California and things shifted to the west coast, he refused to leave his native Brooklyn, NY and concentrated on writing short stories instead until his death.

11/11/60: "Ten Drops of Water"

[schappe1 · 2 April 2015]

Tod and Buz encounter a boy with a pet mule near Zion National Park in Utah. He's been ordered to get rid of it because his family's ranch doesn't have enough water to allow a mule to drink. His family consists of his older brother, (Burt Brinkerhoff, who became a prolific director of episodic TV) and future beach party honey Deborah Walley, (another of the series' teenage actresses- she turned 19 on 8/12/60- I'm guessing this would have been filmed before that). Tod and Buz do what they can to help the family through the drought, including hooking up the engine of their beloved corvette to try to drill the well deeper. The most remarkable thing about this show is the lack of a conventional happy ending. The young family realize that their efforts to keep the ranch, which their family has owned for a century, is destroying them and they have a greater need to be liberated from it than to remain attached to it. A neighbor rancher played by Robert F. Simon, who usually place grouchy, unfeeling types but is here more of a philosopher, has a nice speech about how the land has been 'owned' by many people since it was created and that family that's on it now have actually been tenants on it for a very small period of time when you see it from the full perspective.

This episode reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of Bonanza, "Gift of Water" 2/11/62, where the Cartwrights successfully help out a young family with a similar problem. That one has a happy ending but the theme of the story is that everybody has something to contribute and, as the saying goes, "It's amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit." The Route 66 episode has a different theme and thus a different ending.

New wrinkle on an old theme

[lor_ · 11 September 2023]

The 'vette is all dusty, motoring down a dirt road in Utah taking M & M to their next job as ranch hands. A light mood is initiated by their encounter with a boy named Homer trying to drag his recalcitrant mule from the highway.

Sentiment creeps in immediately as the kid sells his beloved mule for $25 to the old rancher, unable to take care of it himself. On the way home, the youngster stops at a cemetery grave to fill in his late father on current events. Maharis buys the mule from the rancher, intending to give it back to the boy. Homer and two older siblings have been on their own since their dad died two years back.

There's time for scenic locations backing a romantic interest for George with Homer's older sister Deborah Walley (billed as "Introducing...") and some horseback riding.

With a corny theme on the level of "no good deed goes unpunished", this bit of Americana reflecting on how family farms can easily go under nearly turns into a sob story that presents a hopeless situation from a sentimental point-of-view. The eldest brother is as stubborn as a mule about holding on to the family ranch (presaging the message of "Yellowstone"), and even the Corvette is enlisted to help fix the all-important well.

This tried-and-true type of storytelling, dating back to Silent Era movies starring Lillian Gish ("The Wind") or Mary Pickford, has a modern twist, as M & M pitch in to help save the day, learn some life lessons and the ultimate crucial importance of water is ably demonstrated. The concept of staying rooted irrationally in one place versus the boys' wanderings and freedom is powerfully supported, and I loved the footage in the end credits where it's not the Corvette hitting the open road this time around.