Gunsmoke: Season Two: Volume Two – DVD Review

TV lawmen normally come in two styles: Tough as Nails or Down Home. The Untouchables‘ Eliot Ness and Hawaii Five-O‘s Steve McGarrett were stoic in their pursuit of bring justice to their suspects. The Andy Griffith Show‘s Sheriff Taylor captured his criminals with country charm and backwoods tactics. The sophomore outing of Gunsmoke presents a Sheriff Matt Dillon that questions his role as the authority figure. He wants peaceful resolutions when he arrives on the scene. He’s got plenty to say to disarm a criminal, but he’ll reach for his gun without hesitation.

This second half of the Second Season gets to the heart of Sheriff Dillon’s heart with “Bloody Hands.” The episode opens with Dillon surprising a quartet of outlaws in their hideout. Dillon blasts away three of them. He takes the fourth back to Dodge City to await a judge’s verdict. The bloodshed gets to Dillon. He can’t deal with so much violence in his job. Russell Johnson (the Professor on Gilligan’s Island) arrives in town and challenges Dillon to a showdown. Will Dillon be turned into a coward by a man who couldn’t fix a damn boat?

What’s great in the early seasons is that Miss Kitty is still running a brothel above her bar. Contrary to what grandma thought, the staircase doesn’t lead to a second story hotel. The producers don’t come out and declare her role as town Madame as if this was a black and white Deadwood. The ladies working for Miss Kitty aren’t barmaids. The official job description has them providing table side companionship for the drinking cowboys. Does the bar really need these cocktail bunnies to move the warm beers and rotgut to wranglers? There doesn’t seem to be any competition on the dusty main street of Dodge City. Gary’s Olde Towne Tavern doesn’t have a location. Why does she need these ladies on the Long Branch’s payroll? Because they discreetly earn the old fashioned way. One thing that can’t be debated: Miss Kitty isn’t a working girl. During “Last Fling,” two old coots proposition Miss Kitty. Instead of negotiating a price for a doubleheader of frontier fornication, she slaps ‘em and threatens to shoot them if they ever return to her bar. Her promise brings gunfire to their neighborhood. It’s up to Dillon to get triggers off fingers.

The episodes run around 26 minutes, but pack in more plot than the hour long scripts of later seasons. “Chester’s Murder” could have gone twice as long. Chester gets into a disagreement with a drunk gambler over one of the beer girls at Miss Kitty’s bar. Dillon busts the drunk and has Chester haul him off to the jail. The drunk is shot to death and Chester is the only suspect. It’s up to Dillon to find the real killer and clear his assistant’s name.

Gunsmoke: The Second Season, Volume 2 allows us to see Dodge City as a town that wasn’t conceived on absolutes or nostalgic charm. There’s always an undercurrent of vice and greed flowing through the dirt main street. Sheriff Dillon doesn’t merely restore order to his area; he contemplates what sort of order makes his town run the best. He’ll turn a blind eye to certain levels of vice if it makes the citizens happy. He never comes close to raiding Miss Kitty’s establishment. He can’t allow his soul to be completely absorbed into his badge. He’s a man that wears a badge and not a badge that walks like a man.

The Episodes
“Bloody Hands,” “Skid Row,” “Sweet and Sour,” “Cain,” “Bureaucrat,” “Last Fling,” “Chester’s Murder,” “The Photographer,” “Wrong Man,” “Big Girl Lost,” “What the Whiskey Drummer Heard,” “Cheap Labor,” “Moon,” “Who Lives by the Sword,” “Uncle Oliver,” “Daddy-O,” “The Man Who Would Be Marshal,” “Liar from Blackhawk” and “Jealousy.”

The video is 1.33:1 full frame. The black and white transfers are sharp and detailed. The audio is Dolby Digital mono. The levels are set so you can hear the jangle of spurs. There are no subtitles. The episodes are Closed Captioned.

Sponsors Spots (3:17) has the sheriff promoting products including L&M cigarettes and Remington electric shavers. Remember kids that smoking is a bad habit. Don’t let TV cowboys tempt you into lighting up to “Live Modern.”

Gunsmoke: The Second Season, Volume 2 takes us back to the time when this Western was shorter. Even though this season was filmed in black and white, Sheriff Matt Dillon understood the gray nature of Dodge City. This is one of the most compelling and entertaining Westerns in TV history.

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CBS DVD presents Gunsmoke: Season Two: Volume Two. Starring: James Arness, Amanda Blake, Milburn Stone & Dennis Weaver. Originally Broadcasted: Feb. 16 – July 6, 1957. DVD Contents: 19 episodes on 3 discs. Rating: Not Rated. Released on DVD: May 27, 2008. Available at Amazon.com