During his audition, however, Conrad won over Macdonnell after reading only a few lines. Though Meston championed him, Macdonnell thought Conrad might be overexposed. With a resonantly powerful and distinctive voice, Conrad was already one of radio's busiest actors. Conrad was one of the last actors to audition for the role of Marshal Dillon. 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. Matt Dillon was played on radio by William Conrad and on TV by James Arness. William Conrad in 1952, when Matt Dillon was created on radio Dunning notes, "The show drew critical acclaim for unprecedented realism." Episodes Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas, during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. 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. The project was suspended for three years, when producer Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston discovered it while creating an adult Western series of their own. CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was told to proceed.Ī complication arose when Culver's contract as the star of Straight Arrow would not allow him to do another Western series. The first, recorded in June 1949, was very much like a hardcore 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. Īckerman 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. Robinson delegated this to his West Coast CBS vice president, Harry Ackerman, who had developed the Philip Marlowe series. Paley, a fan of the Philip Marlowe radio series, asked his programming chief, Hubell Robinson, to develop a hardcore Western series, about a "Philip Marlowe of the Old West". In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. When aired in the United Kingdom, the television series was initially titled Gun Law. It was frequently well received, holding a top-10 spot in the Nielsen ratings for several seasons. The show won 15 Primetime Emmy awards as well as other accolades. It was ever the stuff of legend." įollowing its regular television series run, five made-for-tv movies were produced. Our own Iliad and Odyssey, created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp Western as romanticized by Buntline, Harte, and Twain. At the end of its run in 1975, Los Angeles Times columnist Cecil Smith wrote: " Gunsmoke was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. A total of 635 episodes were aired over its 20 year run. From 1955 to 1961, it ran in half-hour episodes, and one-hour episodes from 1962 to 1975. In 1955, the series was adapted for television and ran for 20 seasons. John Dunning wrote that among radio drama enthusiasts, " Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." It ran unsponsored for its first few years, with CBS funding its production. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television. It centered on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. Gunsmoke was an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) JSTOR ( June 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.
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