Gunsmoke (radio series)

The Gunsmoke radio series ran from 1952 to 1961 on CBS Radio.

About the radio series

In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, a fan of the Philip Marlowe radio series, asked his programming chief, Hubell Robinson, to develop a hardboiled Western series, a show about a "Philip Marlowe of the Old West". Robinson instructed his West Coast CBS Vice President, Harry Ackerman, who had developed the Philip Marlowe series, to take on the task.

Ackerman and his scriptwriters, Mort Fine and David Friedkin, created an audition script called "Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye" based on one of their Michael Shayne radio scripts, "The Case of the Crooked Wheel" from mid-1948. Two versions were recorded. The first, recorded in June 1949, was very much like a hardboiled detective series and starred Michael Rye (credited as Rye Billsbury) as Dillon; the second, recorded in July 1949, starred Straight Arrow actor Howard Culver in a more Western, lighter version of the same script. CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was told to proceed.

A complication arose, though; Culver's contract as the star of Straight Arrow would not allow him to do another Western series. The project was shelved for three years, when producer Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston discovered it while creating an adult Western series of their own.

Macdonnell and Meston wanted to create a radio Western for adults, in contrast to the prevailing juvenile fare such as The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas, during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. Dunning notes, "The show drew critical acclaim for unprecedented realism."

Radio cast and character biographies

The radio series first aired on CBS on April 26, 1952 with the episode "Billy the Kid", written by Walter Newman, and ended on June 18, 1961. The show stars William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon, Howard McNear as Doc Charles Adams, Georgia Ellis as Kitty Russell, and Parley Baer as Dillon's assistant, Chester Wesley Proudfoot.

Matt Dillon

File:William Conrad 1952.JPG

William Conrad in 1952, when Matt Dillon was created on radio

Matt Dillon was played on radio by William Conrad and on TV by James Arness. Two versions of the same pilot episode titled "Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye" were produced with Rye Billsbury and Howard Culver playing Marshal "Mark" Dillon as the lead, not yet played by Conrad. Conrad was one of the last actors to audition for the role of Marshal Dillon. With a resonantly powerful and distinctive voice, Conrad was already one of radio's busiest actors. Though Meston championed him, Macdonnell thought Conrad might be overexposed. During his audition, however, Conrad won over Macdonnell after reading only a few lines. Dillon, as portrayed by Conrad, was a lonely, isolated man, toughened by a hard life. Macdonnell later claimed, "Much of Matt Dillon's character grew out of Bill Conrad."

Meston relished the upending of cherished Western fiction clichés and said that few Westerns gave any inkling of how brutal the Old West was in reality. Many episodes were based on man's cruelty to man and woman, in as much as the prairie woman's life and the painful treatment of women as chattels were touched on well ahead of their time in most media. As originally pitched to CBS executives, this was to be an adult Western, not a grown-up Hopalong Cassidy.

Dunning writes that Meston was especially disgusted by the archetypal Western hero and set out "to destroy [that type of] character he loathed". In Meston's view, "Dillon was almost as scarred as the homicidal psychopaths who drifted into Dodge from all directions."

Chester

Template:Unreferenced section Chester was played by Parley Baer on radio, and by Dennis Weaver on television. Chester's character had no surname until Baer ad libbed "Proudfoot" during an early rehearsal. Initial Gunsmoke scripts gave him no name at all; his lines were simply to be spoken by "Townsman". Again, Conrad's sense of what the program would be supervened, and Chester was born. Chester's middle initial was given as "W" in the June 15, 1958, episode "Old Flame", and a few episodes later, on the July 7, 1958, episode "Marshal Proudfoot", his middle name, and that of his 10 siblings, is revealed to be Wesley.

The amiable Waco expatriate was usually described as Dillon's "assistant", but in the December 13, 1952, episode "Post Martin", Dillon described Chester as Dillon's deputy. Contradicting this description, in the July 5, 1954, episode "Hank Prine" (episode 116, minute 3:02) Dillon corrects a prisoner who describes Chester as his "deputy", stating "Chester is not my deputy", though they both agree Chester acts like he is. Whatever his title, Chester was Dillon's foil, friend, partner, and in an episode in which Chester nearly dies ("Never Pester Chester"), Dillon allows that Chester was the only person he could trust.

The TV series changed the newly limping Chester's last name from Proudfoot to Goode. (Parley Baer had played the character with a whiny and slightly elderly voice: the limp given to the TV version gave him a similar element of weakness without having to cast an older actor.) Chester was played by Dennis Weaver, who went on to star in the NBC Mystery Movie rotating TV series entry of a police drama with a comedic touch, McCloud, in the early 1970s. Weaver, himself an impressive 6'2", often looked small alongside Arness's height at 6'7".

Doc Adams

Howard McNear starred as Dr. Charles Adams in the radio series, with Milburn Stone portraying Dr. Galen Adams in the television version. In the radio series, "Doc" Adams was initially a self-interested and somewhat dark character with a predilection for constantly attempting to increase his revenue through the procurement of autopsy fees. However, McNear's performances steadily became more warm-hearted and sympathetic. Most notably, this transformation began during (and progressed steadily following) the July 1952 episode "Never Pester Chester", in which a physician with a more compassionate and devoted temperament is essential to the plotline when Chester is near-fatally injured by two trouble-making Texas drovers.

Doc Adams' backstory evokes a varied and experienced life: In some episodes, he had educational ties to Philadelphia; in others, he spent time as ship's doctor aboard the gambling boats that plied the Mississippi River, which provided a background for his knowledge of New Orleans (and acquaintance with Mark Twain). In the January 31, 1953, episode "Cavalcade", a fuller history is offered, though subsequent programs kept close listeners' heads spinning. In "Cavalcade", his real name is Calvin Moore, educated in Boston, and he practiced as a doctor for a year in Richmond, Virginia, where he fell in love with a beautiful young woman, who was also being courted by a wealthy young man named Roger Beauregard. Beauregard forced Doc into fighting a duel with him, resulting in Beauregard's being shot and killed. Though it was a fair duel, as a Yankee and an outsider, Doc was forced to flee. The young woman fled after him and they were married in St. Louis, but two months later, she died of typhus.

Doc wandered throughout the territories until he settled in Dodge City 17 years later under the name of "Charles Adams". The Adams moniker was another Conrad invention, borrowing the surname from cartoonist Charles Addams as a testament to Doc's initially ghoulish comportment.

Miss Kitty

Kitty was played by actress Georgia Ellis on radio, and by Amanda Blake on TV. Ellis first appeared in the radio episode "Billy the Kid" (April 26, 1952) as "Francie Richards" - a former girlfriend of Matt Dillon's and the widow of a criminal - but the character of "Miss Kitty" did not appear until the May 10, 1952, episode "Jaliscoe". Sometime in 1959, Ellis was billed as Georgia Hawkins instead of Georgia Ellis. Amanda Blake appeared in over 500 episodes of the television series, with her last being the April 1, 1974, episode titled, "The Disciple".

In the radio series, Kitty's profession was hinted at, but never explicit; in a 1953 interview with Time, Macdonnell declared, "Kitty is just someone Matt has to visit every once in a while". The magazine observed that she is "obviously not selling chocolate bars". An out-take from the program makes this obvious. The television show first portrayed Kitty as a saloon employee (dance-hall girl/prostitute), then from season two, episode 36 ("Daddy-O"), as half-owner of the Long Branch Saloon.

Distinction from other radio Westerns

File:Long Branch Saloon interior.jpg

Photograph of the actual interior of the real-life Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, taken between 1870 and 1885

Gunsmoke was often a somber program, particularly in its early years. Dunning writes that Dillon

"played his hand and often lost. He arrived too late to prevent a lynching. He amputated a dying man's leg and lost the patient anyway. He saved a girl from brutal rapists then found himself unable to offer her what she needed to stop her from moving into ... life as a prostitute."

Some listeners, such as Dunning, argue the radio version was more realistic. Episodes were aimed at adults and featured some of the most explicit content of their time, including violent crimes, scalpings, massacres, and opium addicts. Many episodes ended on a somber note, and villains often got away with their crimes.

Nonetheless, due to the subtle scripts and outstanding ensemble cast, over the years, the program evolved into a warm, often humorous celebration of human nature. Despite Gunsmoke's realism in some areas, the show took liberties with accuracy in others. The program was set after the arrival of the railroad in Dodge City (1872) and Kansas had been a state since 1861. A U.S. Marshal (actually a deputy marshal, only the senior officer in the district holds the title "marshal") would not be based in Dodge City and would not be involved in local law enforcement.

Apart from the doleful tone, Gunsmoke is distinct from other radio Westerns, as the dialogue is often slow and halting, and due to the outstanding sound effects, listeners have a palpable sense of the prairie setting. The effects are subtle but multilayered, giving the show a spacious feel. John Dunning wrote, "The listener heard extraneous dialogue in the background, just above the muted shouts of kids playing in an alley. He heard noises from the next block, too, where the inevitable dog was barking."

Gunsmoke is unique from other Westerns in that it was unsponsored in the first few years of production. The program got its support from CBS in the first two years. Series producers said that if the show were sponsored, they would have to "clean the show up". The producers wanted to find a sponsor that would allow them to keep the show the way it was.

Talk of adapting Gunsmoke to television

Not long after the radio show began, talk began of adapting it to television. Privately, Macdonnell had a guarded interest in taking the show to television, but publicly, he declared, "our show is perfect for radio", and he feared, as Dunning writes, "Gunsmoke confined by a picture could not possibly be as authentic or attentive to detail." "In the end", wrote Dunning, "CBS simply took it away from Macdonnell and began preparing for the television version."

Conrad and the others were given auditions, but they were little more than token efforts—especially in Conrad's case, due to his obesity. However, Meston was kept as the main writer. In the early years, a majority of the TV episodes were adapted from the radio scripts, often using identical scenes and dialogue. Dunning wrote, "That radio fans considered the TV show a sham and its players impostors should surprise no one. That the TV show was not a sham is due in no small part to the continued strength of Meston's scripts."

Macdonnell and Meston continued the radio version of Gunsmoke until 1961, making it one of the most enduring vintage radio dramas.

Conrad directed two television episodes, in 1963 and 1971, while McNear appeared on six, playing characters other than Doc, including three times as storekeeper Howard Rudd.