Gunsmoke - The First Season
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Actor: Amanda Blake, Dennis Weaver, James Arness, Milburn StoneBrand: ARNESS,JAMES
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Box set, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1051 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-17
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Gunsmoke - The First Season
DVD Review: The "Quiet-Cool" of Matt Dillon
Summary: 5 Stars
James Arness portrayed Marshall Matt Dillon with a "quiet-cool" that has gone unmatched in the history of television. Arness himself had that "quiet-cool" quality in real life as well. When you pick up any show-biz/gossip magazine these days, you see the same old faces in EVERY magazine - they mug, they pose, they appear places just to get their pictures taken, they have "entourages", blah-blah-blah. Not James Arness. He didn't like the Hollywood party scene and only appeared in places he was expected to be. His picture in magazines was a rarity, but when we saw one, it was a real treat! Arness didn't have to pretend or try to be a star.....this man WAS a star, in the truest fashion of the term.
All right, on to this DVD package. There are only a couple of extras, those being original show sponsors. Imagine Marshall Dillon and Doc Adams talking about the great smoke you get with L&M cigarettes! John Wayne himself introduces the premiere GUNSMOKE episode, taking note that Jim Arness is going to be a huge star (he was right).
And get a load of this list of partial guest stars: Aaron Spelling, Barry Atwater (the vampire of "The Night Stalker"), Brett Halsey, Charles Bronson, Chuck Connors, Claude Akins, Dabbs Greer, Dan Blocker, DeForest Kelley, Ed Platt (the Chief on "Get Smart"), Howard McNear (Floyd on "The Andy Griffith Show"), James Drury, John Carradine, John Dehner, Keye Luke, Lola Albright (WOW!), Raymond Bailey (Mr. Drysdale on "The Beverly Hillbillies"), Robert Vaughn, Royal Dano, Sebastian Cabot, Strother Martin and William Hopper! (I wonder if guest star Raymond Bailey remembered his appearance on GUNSMOKE and got the name for "Milburn Drysdale" from Milburn Stone who played Doc? Just a thought.....)
Adding to the great guest line-up are a few episode screenplays written by future film director Sam Peckinpah.
Amanda Blake looks incredible in this season...it's a wonder why Marshall Dillon didn't take her up on her advances...or did he? As the episodes progress, you'll notice how Miss Kitty gradually adds more makeup. She also makes it known (more than once) to Matt that she'd like to be his wife - something that would continue throughout her stay on the show.
In this season, we get no clue as to what Chester is. Is he a deputy? He wears no badge. Is he just a sidekick? Whenever Matt introduces him to someone it's always as plain old "Chester Goode," never as "deputy" or any other title.....so what the heck is he? It's not even revealed what caused the limp in his leg...or is it wooden? Sometimes the leg is so stiff (especially when he's runnin'), it looks like it's supposed to be wood!
Milburn Stone dives right in as Doc Adams, all crusty & blustery right from the get-go.
This first season has the familiar GUNSMOKE theme but with the added "clip-clop" effect that was later dropped.
Bloopers left in include the gravestones at the beginning of most of the episodes; they wobble when the wind blows.....and listen for an airplane flying overhead in the episode "The Hunter." By the way, the opening to almost every show where Matt walks through Boot Hill was so identifiable with the show, it was even parodied in MAD (before it became a magazine, when it was still a comic book).
The last time I saw these first GUNSMOKE shows was when it was syndicated under the title "Marshall Dillon" and the shows were fuzzy. Now, it's like discovering lost episodes! The clarity is so crisp and clean, it's absolutely extraordinary.
The stories are not what you'd expect - Marshall Dillon doesn't always save the victims in time, he doesn't always have the right answer, the wrong people get killed and there are plot twists that you won't see coming - this is NOT one of those predictable 50's TV programs! No wonder this show lasted 20 years! There's even a show about drug addiction - opium, to be exact - that you wouldn't think they would even dare to do in sterile 50's television.....but GUNSMOKE did!
If you're alert, you may catch a few historical innaccuracies, but who really cares? This is extremely enjoyable stuff...so if one of the characters mentions a certain year that doesn't sound correct, just ignore it...IT DOESN'T MATTER...IT'S ONLY A TV SHOW!
I noticed some similarities between GUNSMOKE and "The Andy Griffith Show;" both programs had the wise-but-tough marshall/sheriff and the goofy-but-lovable sidekick/deputy. Even the episode titled "Chester's Mail Order Bride" could've easily been re-written as an Andy Griffith episode. In fact, I think it was! Watch it and see for yourself.....and I wish I had a dollar for every time some bad guy said "this ain't nunna yore bizness marshall," "stay out of this marshall," "you'll be sorry, marshall" or "just try and stop me, marshall!" I'd be rich.
I can't say enough good things about this set. Get it - and enjoy the "quiet-cool" of James Arness: an unmatched, truly great television star.
Description of Gunsmoke - The First Season
No Description Available.Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 17-JUL-2007
Media Type: DVD
A TV series doesn't get a more auspicious launch than did Gunsmoke, the first episode of which, broadcast on Sept. 10, 1955, was introduced by none other than John Wayne ("Some of you may have seen me before"). In this historic prologue (included in this first-season round-up), Wayne hypes Gunsmoke as "honest, adult, and realistic." Of James Arness, starring as United States Marshal Matt Dillon, Wayne predicts, "He'll be a big star, so you might as well get used to him." Viewers did more than get used to him. "Mr. Dillon," as his sidekick Chester (Dennis Weaver) calls him, became a television icon who literally stood tall as a steadfast, incorruptible symbol of justice through two of America's most tumultuous decades. The Bravo network ranked him among TV's 50 greatest characters. Gunsmoke was television's longest running Western, and Arness's 20-year stint as Dillon would be matched only by Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane (and, by the way, Milburn Stone, who costarred with Arness as crusty, "vinegar face" Doc Adams).
For those who grew up with Gunsmoke's full-hour color episodes, this first season will be something of a revelation. The show is in black and white, and, at a half-hour, lean and gritty. Not that Dodge City is Deadwood, by any means, but its reputation as "the Gomorrah of the plains," as Dillon notes in the first episode, is well earned. Most episodes begin with Dillon setting the stage, Dragnet-style, like a frontier Joe Friday. "A man will choose his gun quicker to make a point than he'll draw on his logic," he ruminates at one point. "That's where I come in." Gunsmoke has its share of shootouts and traditional Western action, but the best episodes are gripping psychological dramas. In "Reward for Matt," the embittered widow of a racist Dillon was forced to gun down puts a price on his head. In "The Killer," Dillon exposes a gunslinger (guest star Charles Bronson) for the coward he is. Even an otherwise light-hearted holiday episode, "Magnus," in which Chester's backwards, backwoods brother comes to visit, is darkened by a twisted man gunning for "wicked" dance hall woman Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake), queen of the Longbranch saloon (and a close friend of the marshal?just how close is only hinted at). John Wayne was right: More than 50 years later, Gunsmoke remains "the best thing of its kind to come along." --Donald Liebenson
Beyond Gunsmoke
 More TV Westerns |  50th Anniversary Collection |  Director?s Collection |
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