Gunsmoke - General Discussion

[Brian Cronin]

I have been watching the series since it looped around on MeTV last year and I'm up to Season 9 and the series has been excellent so far.

I just hit an episode called "Mayblossom" and it really showed the bizarre approach that the show often took to comedy and violence. The conceit of the episode is that Mayblossom (strong performance by Lauri Peters), a cousin of Festus (who has only recently joined the cast officially and Ken Curtis is still slowly developing the character - he's such a fascinating character), has shown up to marry Festus because of an agreement that their parents had made when they were babies. So half of the episode is low hanging fruit comedy. My wife was in the room doing some work while I was watching the episode and she remarked at how silly the show seemed. Then I turned it off when she was done so we could watch some TV together. Later at night, I finished the episode and Mayblossom is then RAPED. Festus then murders the guy who raped her and the episode ends with Matt putting him in jail, with everyone knowing that the jury won't convict him. What a dramatic change of pace! The tone change was shocking. 

Anyhow, I just figured we should have a thread for such an iconic show (it still airs daily on, like, three different cable channels). 

[langford peel]

Gunsmoke is among my top three shows of all time along with Bonanza and The Rifleman. It was much more gritty and realistic and still holds up today.

You should watch the early half hour shows. It is always fun to watch a show and see big movie stars when they are first starting out. One of my personal favorites was the episode in 1956 called "The Killer" which starred a young Charles Bronson as the gunfighter and cowardly murderer Crego. 

These half hour shows are great and show how far Hollywood has fallen. They were able to pack a whole story into a half hour. The byplay with a very young Amanda Blake is also instructive. It is obvious that she is a madam and a prostitute in the half hour shows instead of a "saloon keeper" in later years. You have to read the subtext but it is right there.

The shows start in Boot Hill and are just so much more gritty and realistic.

I highly recommend that you check them out.

[langford peel]

By the way Langford Peel was one of the greatest gunfighters of all time and should have appeared in the show as he was a very important part of the history of Virgina City.

They only used him as one off with a character called Langford Poole who was outdrawn by Adam Cartwright of all people. What a farce.

[langford peel]

My other favorite Gunsmoke episode didn't even have Matt or Kitty in it. It was "Drago" where Bubby Ebsen plays a mountain man who goes off on a revenge spree. A really excellent episode.

[Brian Cronin]

On 4/2/2019 at 4:05 PM, langford peel said:

Gunsmoke is among my top three shows of all time along with Bonanza and The Rifleman. It was much more gritty and realistic and still holds up today.

You should watch the early half hour shows. It is always fun to watch a show and see big movie stars when they are first starting out. One of my personal favorites was the episode in 1956 called "The Killer" which starred a young Charles Bronson as the gunfighter and cowardly murderer Crego. 

These half hour shows are great and show how far Hollywood has fallen. They were able to pack a whole story into a half hour. The byplay with a very young Amanda Blake is also instructive. It is obvious that she is a madam and a prostitute in the half hour shows instead of a "saloon keeper" in later years. You have to read the subtext but it is right there.

The shows start in Boot Hill and are just so much more gritty and realistic.

I highly recommend that you check them out.

Oh yeah, the early episodes are the best by far, since they were able to pick the best episodes from the classic radio show version to use (essentially, the radio show had already done the work of figuring out which episodes worked best), but I think the show has had remarkable staying power and is still pretty darn good in Season 9. I have no idea how it will last when it gets into color, but so far, so good. The additions of Quint and Festus have also gone pretty seamlessly. 

[langford peel]

Burt Reynolds did his best work in Gunsmoke

[fishcakes]

On 4/4/2019 at 6:29 AM, Brian Cronin said:

Oh yeah, the early episodes are the best by far, since they were able to pick the best episodes from the classic radio show version to use (essentially, the radio show had already done the work of figuring out which episodes worked best), but I think the show has had remarkable staying power and is still pretty darn good in Season 9. I have no idea how it will last when it gets into color, but so far, so good. The additions of Quint and Festus have also gone pretty seamlessly. 

The early half hour episodes are so good, and it was still pretty great when it went to an hour, but I think the quality really started to drop off a year or two after it went to color in season 12, which also coincided with James Arness reducing his role considerably. Often he would only appear in the first or last couple of minutes of the episode, and Festus was really the lead character at that point. That was in the late 1960s and the first episodes I remember watching as a kid. Until I started rewatching it a few years ago on DVD starting with season 1, I remembered it as being mostly an action show with a lot of shootouts and saloon fights where, when two people started fighting, everyone else in the Long Branch would hilariously pair up and start fighting too.

Those early seasons are all quality drama and good writing though. I loved Dennis Weaver, whose Chester could be delightfully deadpan (for example, the time someone was in in the jail cell loudly complaining and Chester said to the Marshal, "do you want me to go hit him with a stick or something?"). It was also fun to see Ken Curtis playing non-Festus roles, where he was all clean-shaven and handsome.

[ratgirlagogo]

On 4/2/2019 at 3:57 AM, Brian Cronin said:

I have been watching the series since it looped around on MeTV last year

Me too!  There was a Gunsmoke forum at Previously but it felt weird to comment in a forum that basically had not had activity in years.  It's been fascinating for me to watch this show in episode order like this. I never watched it as a kid, but  I am pretty familiar with the radio series (because Mr Rat is a radio collector) , which I first listened to around 15 or so years ago.   BTW as you may or may not know in general the fans of the radio series don't like the TV series, partly because of the perceived softening of the characters/stories, and partly because of the recasting. 

I have so many thoughts, but I'll start with these few.

One of the coolest things about the TV show is that nobody ever mentions that Chester has a physical disability.

It's odd that Miss Kitty so rarely asks Sam the bartender to bounce anybody out of the Long Branch.  Jeez! Glenn Strange was a huge guy with such a long history of playing Western heavies, not to mention Frankenstein's monster!

Another of the oddities of the show is that none of the horses ever have names.  Especially since Matt Dillon's horse is quite distinctive looking and easily distinguished from anybody else's horse.  Apparently John Meston was afraid that if horses and dogs and such were given names that Gunsmoke would somehow immediately turn into a children's Western.  Supposedly at some point Matt mentioned that his horse's name was Buck, but as of the beginning of season ten this hasn't happened.  Of course Festus's mule is called Ruth, thus I suppose underlining Festus's comic character status.

Wow, it's good to have somewhere to talk about my obsession with this ancient old show.😄

Edited April 22, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[Schnickelfritz]

2 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

Another of the oddities of the show is that none of the horses ever have names.  Especially since Matt Dillon's horse is quite distinctive looking and easily distinguished from anybody else's horse.  Apparently John Meston was afraid that if horses and dogs and such were given names that Gunsmoke would somehow immediately turn into a children's Western.  Supposedly at some point Matt mentioned that his horse's name was Buck, but as of the beginning of season ten this hasn't happened.  Of course Festus's mule is called Ruth, thus I suppose underlining Festus's comic character status.

You have quite a wait for the big reveal... Actually,  Festus calls the horse Buck in season 17, episode 12 (The Bullet, part 1).

I'm having a grand good time watching all of these episodes in order and finding new tidbits and oddities (such as Festus' mule being a male but being called Ruth). When I watched this *cough* forty *cough* years ago, I didn't care about things like that.  Watching this through these old grown up eyes is like discovering a brand new show.

[langford peel]

The reason why James Arness cut back his filming was that his leg wound from World  War 2 temp as acting up. He was a legitimate war hero who was wounded at Anzio I the Italian campaign and as the years went by his pain and his Lin became more pronounced.

Gunsmoke was one of the more realistic Westerns and they took the tack of what an old Cowboy told one of the writers. You see they saw their horses as tools and not pets.  When they asked the cowboy who was wrangling horses on the show why he didn’t give his horse a name he said “why would I name something I might have to eat someday?”

Edited April 23, 2019 by langford peel

[Magnumfangirl]

It's nice to see Gunsmoke get a thread here because it's still an excellent show.  I've watched it on and off since it was on TVLand in the late 90s.  I'll get tired of it and quit watching for a while, but then I'll come across it and get sucked back in and I still haven't seen all 635 episodes!  

On 4/4/2019 at 8:29 AM, Brian Cronin said:

I have no idea how it will last when it gets into color, but so far, so good.

It's still a quality show in the color years.  Some of the best episodes include "The Bullet" (a 3 parter), "9:12 to Dodge" (first ep I ever saw), "Matt's Love Story" (with Micheal Learned), "The Jailer" (with Bette Davis), "Hostage!" and "The Disciple".  The color seasons also gave us Buck Taylor as Newly O'Brien (Matt's best occasional deputy) and the all time funniest episode in season 18 "A Quiet A Day in Dodge."

[langford peel]

I never really understood why they didn't get Matt and Kitty married. 

I think Matt was based on Wyatt Earp who did marry the prostitute he was involved with until he threw her over for a new women. 

What would have been fun was if they had a Doc Holiday figure instead of a collection of flawed deputies.

Edited May 9, 2019 by langford peel

[ratgirlagogo]

On 4/23/2019 at 1:40 AM, langford peel said:

You see they saw their horses as tools and not pets.  When they asked the cowboy who was wrangling horses on the show why he didn’t give his horse a name he said “why would I name something I might have to eat someday?”

Late answering this.  I understand this point, but I still don't agree.  First, everybody who got eaten in the Donner Party was known by name by all the other people who ate them.  It was an extreme situation and  a cowboy might eat his horse in the same situation, even if he had given it a name.    Second, you might not give a pet like a fish, or even a cat, a name, because you don't really need them to obey you.  But I can't think of anyone I've ever met who has ever had a relationship with a working animal  of any kind that didn't start by giving it a name.  If a horse or a dog or whatever won't answer to its name it's going to be tough sledding getting it to obey any other commands.

Edited May 10, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[Magnumfangirl]

On 4/22/2019 at 9:31 PM, Schnickelfritz said:

You have quite a wait for the big reveal... Actually,  Festus calls the horse Buck in season 17, episode 12 (The Bullet, part 1).

Festus calls Matt's horse Buck in the season 10 episode "Deputy Festus", too.  It's brief, but he says it when he's tying Ruth to the rail in front of the Marshall's office.  I saw this episode last week.

[ratgirlagogo]

48 minutes ago, Magnumfangirl said:

estus calls Matt's horse Buck in the season 10 episode "Deputy Festus", too.  It's brief, but he says it when he's tying Ruth to the rail in front of the Marshall's office.  I saw this episode last week

Well, golly bill, as Festus might say.  I just saw that episode YESTERDAY and I did NOT catch that.  How I wish had kept it on the DVR to check it again.  Guess I'll keep an eye to DVR it again off of INSP or some such.

[langford peel]

I think you saw the attitude of most people the West in the movie “Hondo” when the Duke told the kid to not pet the dog. Which was called Dog.

I agree that some made their horses pets but I think it is safe to say that most working cowboys did not. I think that TV has romanticized these relationships beyond what was the reality. 

[ratgirlagogo]

13 hours ago, langford peel said:

I think you saw the attitude of most people the West in the movie “Hondo” when the Duke told the kid to not pet the dog. Which was called Dog.

I'm not sure that referencing a work of fiction is a lead pipe cinch way of making your point here, but OK, plus I like Hondo.  But it actually underlines my argument - he doesn't want the kid to pet the dog, because it's working.  The same way you don't pet a seeing eye dog - that dog is doing a job and you shouldn't be distracting it.

Giving a working animal a name (like Horse or Dog if that's what you want) is not the same as regarding that animal as a pet.  A horse or a dog are not machines like cars you can turn off and on with a key, and then floor it.  They have to understand and obey commands.  

Edited May 11, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[Schnickelfritz]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 8:29 AM, Magnumfangirl said:

Festus calls Matt's horse Buck in the season 10 episode "Deputy Festus", too.  It's brief, but he says it when he's tying Ruth to the rail in front of the Marshall's office.  I saw this episode last week.

Thanks for the heads up!! We were out of town for the big birthday, anniversary, Mother's Day weekend celebration and recorded Gunsmoke. For some reason I skipped "Deputy Festus" and watched "One Killer on Ice" first this afternoon. It would have been great sadness if I had missed the scene (which I would have - undoubtedly). Now I am off to watch it. Sometimes life is good... And the fates are kind.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Schnickelfritz

[ratgirlagogo]

On 5/10/2019 at 9:29 AM, Magnumfangirl said:

Festus calls Matt's horse Buck in the season 10 episode "Deputy Festus", too.  It's brief, but he says it when he's tying Ruth to the rail in front of the Marshall's office.  I saw this episode last week.

You know, I watched this little section several times after recording it a couple of days ago.  I don't doubt what you say but I really couldn't make it out.  However I DID hear Festus call the horse Buck on the episode I watched today, episode 22 Winner Take All, right after Festus helps the wounded Matt and prepares them to go on to Tascosa.  But it's very quiet and if hadn't been actively listening for it, it would have gone by me.

On  season 10, episode 21, A Song for Dying that I just watched yesterday- Theodore Bikel plays a doctor who quit medicine years ago after he failed to prevent the death of a woman in childbirth.  Of course the plot is that the husband is out to get him, etc.  Of note - it's established that Doc Adams and this character know each other from way back - Doc Adams calls him "Martin" and the character calls Doc Adams GALEN.  So Doc Adams' first name has already been established by this point in the series - whereas a lot of TV trivia sites (including the MeTV website) say that it came a few seasons later. 

How's THAT for trivial nitpicking! Feel free to roll your eyes at me.:)

Also probably a lot of you had already known that the version of Beat the Drum Slowly that MeTV uses as one of its promotions for its Westerns lineup is Theodore Bikel's vocal from this episode.  But I had not, and that was pretty great.

Edited May 16, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[ratgirlagogo]

So, an observation in passing.

Season 10, episode 24, Thursday's Child, starring the great Jean Arthur. She plays Kitty's mentor (in salooning, I suppose) who comes to Dodge to (secretly) help deliver her outlaw son's wife deliver their child.  When the young wife keeps saying she's very very tired, Jean Arthur laughs quietly and tells her in that great throaty voice, "oh honey, you're just pregnant, that's all."

First use of that word on this show, probably an early use for American TV generally.  And along those lines:

Season 11, episode 7, The Bounty Hunter.  Robert Lansing finds out from the wife of his intended target that he beat a man to death because - that man had raped her.

 The first use of this word seems even more significant, since rape and the threat of rape are constant themes on Gunsmoke, usually presented in stomach-turningly low-key realistic ways. for example in season 3, episode 24, The Cabin. But the word was never spoken.

[langford peel]

One of my other favorite episodes was "The Jailer" which aired in October of 1966. It starred Bette Davis and Bruce Dern with a bunch of other young actors like Tom Skerrit and Julie Sommars.

I always wondered how Bette felt about going from being one of the biggest stars in Hollywood to chewing the scenery on an episodic TV Western. Still and all Gunsmoke attracted some high quality guest stars. That doesn't happen so much anymore. I mean big stars will work on TV on shows of their own but you don't see them guest starring that much.

Some of the former big shots might give that a chance.

[Brian Cronin]

On 6/13/2019 at 7:18 PM, langford peel said:

One of my other favorite episodes was "The Jailer" which aired in October of 1966. It starred Bette Davis and Bruce Dern with a bunch of other young actors like Tom Skerrit and Julie Sommars.

I always wondered how Bette felt about going from being one of the biggest stars in Hollywood to chewing the scenery on an episodic TV Western. Still and all Gunsmoke attracted some high quality guest stars. That doesn't happen so much anymore. I mean big stars will work on TV on shows of their own but you don't see them guest starring that much.

Some of the former big shots might give that a chance.

The recent FX miniseries, Feud: Bette and Joan, did a good job showing how humiliating it was for Davis to be forced to do TV.