Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
TV-G | 10 September 1955 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 20
  • 19
  • 18
  • 17
  • 16
  • 15
  • 14
  • 13
  • 12
  • 11
  • 10
  • 9
  • 8
  • 7
  • 6
  • 5
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 0
  • Reviews
    VeteranLight

    I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

    ... View More
    TrueHello

    Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

    ... View More
    Janis

    One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

    ... View More
    Billy Ollie

    Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

    ... View More
    kennysmail2001

    Many of the topics they discuss on Gunsmoke are based on solid facts. Not when they are goofing around of course, but during those thoughtful moments on topics of food, health or the beginning of a plague outbreak. Most programs speak in generalities, or just plain vague about the subject matter.r. Most of the main characters of the program have been, and still remain to be great role models for boys eight to eighteen years of age. Almost without fail each shows story plot has some sort of moral to it. Gunsmoke is as it was in 1955, a number one T.V. Show that's being enjoyed by the children of the generation that created Gunsmoke. Matt's favorite phrases, "Hold It" "Don't try it". Happy viewing. K. Jones

    ... View More
    jsignoretta

    As a youngster I fell in love with the show during it's last five years on the air....thank God for reruns.....fantastic story writing and actors. I love the early episodes as well as the later episodes. They had a great way of bringing in new characters on a transitional basis, who would eventually become regulars and keep making the show even better; Festus being the best. It kept a real continuity to the show. The show was realistic in that it didn't always have a completely happy ending all the time.....but always provided a moral to the story....something Hollywood has mostly forgotten about today....It could be rough and showed how violent the Old West could be but yet the tight friendship between the main characters had a way of warming your heart.

    ... View More
    rbseaking1

    I watch this on the Encore westerns channel and I must say I love it as much today as I did when I first saw it. Thankfully there are like 20 seasons of episodes for them to run. This is absolutely the best of the 50's and 60's westerns and that's quite a feat considering there were quite a few good ones including Rawhide, The Virginian, Bonanza, Have Gun Will travel, Wagon Train etc. Dillon wasn't an angel, he was conflicted at times, but he was wise and had integrity knowing what's right and wrong. He didn't hesitate to deal out some frontier justice to people who deserved it so he was no Gene Autry. The cast of characters was always good but I must admit I've always found Chester kind of annoying.

    ... View More
    bkoganbing

    When you're talking TV westerns there are only two really that are at the top, interchangeably as it were. One is CBS's Gunsmoke and the other is NBC's Bonanza. Then you discuss anything else.It's interesting to speculate how John Wayne's career might have taken a different turn had he accepted the offer to star in a weekly half hour television show about the Marshal of Dodge City. But of course he didn't do it, but instead pushed hard for an even taller marshal for the Kansas frontier town. James Arness had co-starred with the Duke in Big Jim McLain, Island in the Sky, and Hondo. He certainly brought a Duke like presence to the role of Marshal Matt Dillon.A lot of people forget that Gunsmoke was a radio series for several years before it came to television. It ran parallel on radio in the declining years of radio drama and the voice of Matt Dillon on the radio was William Conrad. Certainly a capable enough actor, Conrad's squat appearance just didn't match the description on radio of Dillon. Why do you think John Wayne was the first choice?Besides the regulars on every week which included Dennis Weaver as the stiff legged somewhat mentally challenged Deputy Chester Goode, Milburn Stone as testy and cantankerous Doctor Galen Adams, and Amanda Blake as Matt's significant other, Kitty Russell of the Longbranch saloon, the writers were smart enough to make sure the producers kept a recurring cast of regulars as the townspeople. Roy Roberts the banker, Eddy Waller as the livery stable owner, Glenn Strange as the bartender in the Longbranch, and for a while Burt Reynolds as a blacksmith, popped up in several episodes a year, even just with a line or two. It kept a great sense of continuity and the whole community of Dodge City became like familiar friends.Poor Dennis Weaver who related the stiff leg was his idea to establish individuality of his character and that he had to study yoga in order to walk with it and mount a horse said that he would have done something different if he knew how difficult it was going to be. He read for the Matt Dillon part and took the role of Chester because he needed the work. But after several seasons, he naturally did not want to spend his career typecast as a half wit. He quit and the rustic Festus Hagen came on as the Deputy. Festus was uneducated, but was by no means stupid. His arguments with the cantankerous Doc Adams were classic. Festus was played with real flair by Ken Curtis.If Gunsmoke is remembered for something other than a really great western series, maybe the best we ever had on television, it's the show that was saved by White House intervention. Along about 1965 because of declining ratings CBS was considering giving it the axe. But in an interview Lady Bird Johnson happened to mention that Gunsmoke was her favorite television show. That offhand comment revived interest in the series and CBS kept Gunsmoke on for another decade.Gunsmoke was an adult western, the plot situations were adult, but it's characters were both real and morally upright. Matt Dillon was no kid's cowboy hero like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, but he was honest and decent and a fine role model who was incorruptible. And he and Kitty Russell had an adult romance going in the same manner as Perry Mason and Della Street. It was unspoken that sex as well as liquor was to be had at the Longbranch, but Miss Kitty had eyes only for the Marshal.As did America for twenty satisfying years.

    ... View More