Product Description

Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for bringing law and respectability to the Dodge City in this western action-drama. The show still holds the record for being the longest running primetime drama series in television history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5398 in DVD
• Brand: MURPHY,AUDIE
• Released on: 2006-01-03
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Subtitled, Color, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Dimensions: 1.30 pounds
• Running time: 1145 minutes

Amazon.com
Gunsmoke: 50th Anniversary Edition Volume 1 is a winning collection of episodes from the long-running CBS Western's first nine seasons, with an accent on special guest stars who had yet to find fame. A few key storylines are in the mix, too, including Gunsmoke's first episode, dated September 10, 1955 and introduced by John Wayne, who more or less suggests that the series' beefy star, James Arness, is cut from the same heroic cloth as the Duke himself. No matter who drops in for a guest spot, however, or whether Gunsmoke was a half-hour or hour-long program (the show doubled its running time by season 8), the running storyline and core characters are as constant as the prairie stars.

Arness plays plain-speaking U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, who keeps the peace over a wide territory from his perch in Dodge City, Kansas, a rough-and-tumble town where prospectors, farmers, bounty hunters, outlaws, and the occasional lunatic pass through. Dennis Weaver lends support as Dillon's deputy, Chester, a courageous clown; Amanda Blake is saloon keeper Kitty; and Milburn Stone plays irascible Doc, apparently Dodge City's only physician. Volume 1 highlights feature a couple of episodes with Charles Bronson, including "The Killer," in which the future Death Wish star portrays a psychopath preying on the weak. Mogul Aaron Spelling, at one time a character actor, appears as a spacey wanderer who nearly gets lynched in "The Guitar." Cloris Leachman is very good as a woman with a diabolical edge in "Legal Revenge," Angie Dickinson is memorable as an Arapaho Indian whose marriage to a white settler incites racial anger, and Jack Lord portrays a pair of brothers who threaten Doc's life. Burt Reynolds, who joined the cast of Gunsmoke as the half-white, half-Comanche character Quint, is introduced in the very effective drama "Quint Asper Comes Home," while Ken Curtis, whose goofy Festus effectively replaced the departing Chester in season 9, enters the series in "Prairie Wolfer."

Volume 2 picks up exactly where Volume 1 ends, with the long-running series entering its 10th year, each episode an hour long and Ken Curtis now a permanent member of the cast as the buffoonish Festus. A couple of other actors will come and go as cast regulars, but the core group remains: James Arness as U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, Amanda Blake as saloon keeper Kitty, and Milburn Stone as Doc. This collection of programs cherry-picks its way through season 19, emphasizing guest stars of note including Leonard Nimoy, excellent as a wry Indian and skinner in "Treasure of John Walking Fox," and William Shatner as a wily outlaw posing as a deputy sheriff in "Quaker Girl." (Arness, who provides a brief, vocal introduction to each episode, notes that Shatner was already starring on Star Trek by the time "Quaker Girl" was broadcast in 1966.)

Bette Davis, Bruce Dern, and Tom Skerritt all appear in "The Jailer" (the first color episode in this collection), in which the legendary Davis plays a vengeful widow who kidnaps Kitty in order to lure Matt to his own execution. Ed Asner provides optional commentary for "Hung High," in which he stars, while a young Dennis Hopper turns up as a villain out to kill a bounty hunter (a charismatic John D. Barrymore, father of Drew). Carroll O'Connor is very effective in "The Wrong Man," Jon Voight (in the same year as Midnight Cowboy) makes a splash as a convicted murderer who saves Kitty's life in "The Prisoner," and Kurt Russell is solid and sympathetic as a young man determined to avenge the death of his father in "Trail of Bloodshed." Special features include a couple of gag/blooper reels, a 1968 Emmy Award presentation to Milburn Stone, and a pair of old television interviews with Amanda Blake. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Oh, please--- why not do a season-by-season DVD release??
Look, I know "Gunsmoke" ran 20 years and filmed 636 or so episodes, but cant we still get a full season-by-season DVD in motion?

This "50th Anniversary Edition" looks to be chock full of extras, and that's great, but it's another "compilation" collection, with just a few espisodes here and there from the series' run.

And if we're lucky enought to GET a full seasonal DVD release on "Gunsmoke" (finally), will these same wonderful extras still be available on those??

I am NOT excited about this middling tossed-together package--- no matter how many interviews and commentaries it has... Yes, I WANT those extras, but with a full episodic collection to go with them!

Nice, but woefully inadequate
Since a number of truly mediocre TV series have been released in complete season DVD sets, it boggles the mind to see that "Gunsmoke," the longest running drama in TV history, has gotten comparatively shabby treatment. Here we have a mish-mash of episodes from the show's various eras that have mostly been selected because of "big name" guest stars that appeared in them, not because they are the best in the series' 20-year run. If CBS wanted to issue a "selected episodes" collection, they should have used better criteria than guest stars (some of whom aren't all that "big" anyway, including Angie Dickinson, Richard Chamberlain, Leonard Nimoy, Adam West, et al). Moreover, most of these epiosodes have been issued on home video before.

Perhaps it is asking too much for CBS to issue the entire series on DVD, consisting of some 635 episodes (although they already have issued the first 3 1/2 seasons on 20 DVDs through their video club), but there are a number of better alternatives than this half-hearted effort. They could issue DVDs with the best episodes of each season, or sets with the best of the show's several eras (half-hour and one-hour black and white shows, and one-hour color episodes), or entire seasons one at a time to see how well they do in the market place (they have already done 3 seasons worth of "Have Gun - Will Travel" this way).

Since this set is all that "Gunsmoke" fans are likely to get for some time, it will have to do (and is better than nothing; there are, after all, some interesting special features included). Whether or not it is worth the asking price may depend on how many of the episodes you already have in your collection. For many "Gunsmoke" fans, that may be a deal breaker.

A Disappointment
This set has its good points and its bad points.

The picture quality is outstanding as well as the audio; much better than TV Land. The special features are nice as well. I also really liked the audio commentary from not only James Arness and Dennis Weaver, but actors like Angie Dickinson and Bruce Dern. There is another subtle feature to the episodes that I liked. The episodes on TV Land are edited more than you realize. There are small snippets throughout the show that are edited out, usually a delayed glance here or there. No big deal really but they can have a powerful emotional impact to the story. I first noticed it on "The Wrong Man" with Carroll O'Connor. When Hootie leaves the Long Branch and his sons are trying to tell him that he has no more credit at the general store, there is a knowing delay by O'Connor as well as a glance to his other son which to me was powerful in setting the tone for the rest of the episode. But it is cut out of the tv version, which I have recorded on VHS.

My main complaint which overrides most of the positives is with the episodes selected. Some are good but there's a long list of much better episodes that were ignored or not selected for a reason. I, like many others want to see the entire series put out season by season or bundled. I for one will gladly buy them all.