Gunsmoke's Origins: The Complete First Season on DVD

52 years ago, a new western series blazed onto television, soon to find itself in the company of similarly-themed shows such as Have Gun, Will Travel, The Rifleman and Bonanza. All of these programs were destined to become classics, but something set Gunsmoke apart, something that would ensure that the show outlasted all of the others, completing its run two decades later. Gunsmoke actually began as a radio show three years earlier, and overlapped the CBS television series by a few years.

John Wayne, then in his forties, would have been a good choice as Marshal Matt Dillon, the maverick lawman responsible for keeping the peace in a frontier town not known for being very peaceful. But the producers decided to take a chance on a 32 year-old actor named James Arness, a towering 6' 7" veteran of Hollywood who had a bit part in the 1951 science fiction film The Thing as the title creature. This was a decision that the producers would never regret.

Gunsmoke: The Complete First Season, comprises six DVD's and 39 episodes. Unlike Gunsmoke: The Director's Cut and Gunsmoke: 50th Anniversary Edition, also on DVD, The Complete First Season has virtually no extra features, save for a couple of commercials on the first disc. One of those commercials is almost scandalous from a modern viewpoint. James Arness and fellow cast member Milburn Stone are both casually puffing L&M cigarettes, and heartily endorsing the brand as refreshing and flavorful. A prior disclaimer stated that this particular commercial was only being shown in its historical context. The next commercial is a low-key plug for Remington razors. During the end credits for one of the episodes, a small picture of a Remington razor is shown to the left of the names!

The first few years of Gunsmoke consisted of 30-minute, black and white episodes, which gave the series a kind of wholesome simplicity, and lent an aura of long ago and far away. Gunsmoke had some of the best writers in Hollywood, greats like Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch), and John Meston, who wrote most of the first season's scripts. The writers knew that they only had a brief 30 minutes- less with the commercials- to set up a conflict and then resolve the situation, and they accomplished this remarkably well. The episodes were brief but brilliant, pithy and inspiring, and half a century later still elicit the full range of emotions from viewers.
The writers back then accomplished all of this without resorting to graphic violence or profanity.

What is especially interesting is that Gunsmoke: The Complete First Season features so many renowned actors before they achieved fame. DeForest Kelley, who played Dr. "Bones" McCoy in the original Star Trek, has a part in "Indian Scout" as a vengeful cowboy who blames his brother's death on the lone survivor of an Indian massacre. A decade before Star Trek and looking like a mountain man in this episode, he bears no resemblance to the character that made him famous. Chuck Connors, who a few years later would star in the aforementioned The Rifleman, plays a bullying, bruiser of a prizefighter in "The Preacher", appearing with Royal Dano, who himself played numerous different roles during the series' long run. After watching "The Preacher", I did not realize at first that Dano also played the title role in an earlier episode, "Obie Tater," as a lonely old farmer who falls for a conniving saloon girl. Producer Aaron Spelling makes an appearance in The Guitar as a harmless, crooning drifter who unintentionally incurs the wrath of two former Confederate soldiers.

Several episodes from season one stand out as especially good. In "Magnus", Marshal Dillon's assistant Chester Goode (Dennis Weaver), has an unexpected reunion with his estranged brother, played by Robert Easton. A wild, sanctimonious preacher named Lucifer Jones (James Anderson) complicates matters further. "The Killer" features a young Charles Bronson as Crigo, a cowardly cowboy who provokes weaker men into gunfights just so he can shoot them down. Dillon realizes that in each shooting, Crigo's opponent drew first, so the marshal can not arrest Crigo for murder. "Unknown Grave" is a grim but exciting plot that pits the marshal against an entire band of outlaws who come to town to free their youngest member, whom Dillon has in custody. Chester even blows away one of the bad guys with a shot gun. This is the only episode that I have ever seen in which Chester actually kills someone.

With the exception of maybe two or three, every episode in the first season begins with a Boot Hill monologue by Marshal Dillon, who walks grimly among the crude wooden markers erected over the graves of some of the most wretched, the most unfortunate, the most depraved men ever to walk the streets of Dodge City, Kansas. The marshal's ruminations usually give some hint as to the coming episode's plot or moral. I found these sequences to be a little tiresome and too preachy. Oddly enough, some of the death dates on the markers on Boot Hill read 1880's, although the show clearly takes place in the 1870's. Gunsmoke: The First Season has a few other minor inconsistencies, but nothing that bothered me too much.