Marshall Dillon has died

Sad news from the world of entertainment, the man who played Marshall Matt Dillon for 20 years on the TV show Gunsmoke died today or yesterday; the scroll on the news station screen didn't specify. Who can forget the impact the man had on generations of young Americans. This was a hero, not only on the screen but also in the war. At six foot seven and a half inches, Arness was not eligible to train as a fighter pilot, his chosen interest in the war effort. Instead he became a soldier and served in the Italian Campaign,. Wounded at Anzio, Arness always displayed the stiffness in his leg from that wound. His huge presence seemed to be the reason for his long strides and odd manner of walking but it was the wound that caused that... Also I can also remember how Arness mounted and dismounted his beuatiful gray quarter horse, Buck. He always pulled that injured leg over and off the saddle stiff-leggedly.

So what was it about Matt Dillon that made him so much a part of our television history. The list of charatersitics is unlimited. Dillon stood for law and order in the wild, reckless world populated by unsavory, vicious and dangerous villains. Matt was always there to shore up any clamity. The good found shelter in his immense shadow; the evil- justice.. Probably the most intriguing aspect of Gunsmoke was the unspoken relationship of Matt and Kitty Russell, the proprietress of the Long Branch Saloon. Kitty had the tendency to say Maaatt with a cooing, admiring tone which lead viewers to believe there was a relationship. So year after year we waited to see if the saloon keeper and the Marshall would ever marry, if the show would ever indulge us with an explanantion of their relationship. He was her hero and ours. But if were they intimate, why wouldn't they marry. Sad to say, Amanda Blake left Gunsmoke after the 19th season. The show aired but one more season but no mention of Miss Kitty's departure was ever mentioned. Miss Blake died of AIDS not long after leaving the show.

For me and for many of my generation, watching Gunsmoke on Saturday nights ended as we began dating and being out on Saturday nights. Of course several other factors contributed to my generations straying from its Saturday night ritual of Jackie Gleason, Have Gun Will Travel and Gunsmoke. First the change from black and white to color affected the film noire, the black and white certainty of the law and seemed to diminsh the show. Then the show moved from a half hour to the whole hour which diluted its impact. Also new characters were added, Newly and Festus, and Arness began to fade into a perpetual state of being away only to return in the nick of time to save Dodge from the wicked. For me the longer show appeared to be just padding.. By that I mean half hour scrips were being extended to an hour with digressions and humor. None of these features improved the show! Rather they seemed to be the work of advertising. Here was a popular show with a loyal following. Have Gun Will Travel left the air and Gunsmoke attempted to fill the vacancy but didn't.

For me Gunsmoke was a integral part of growing up. It taught values our society held and was moving towards. Matt was a good man, fair and decent. He treated the Indian renegades with dignity and decency. In later episodes racial considerations came into the scripts. Black characters began to appear on the show and Matt was a model of the equality toward blacks which our soceity was now beginning to recognize. We, as a nation, were moving towards a more fair society and Matt showed us that this was the right thing to do. He took the side of freed slaves being pressed upon by racists, ex-Confederates and other unsavory types. The lesson to the country was that things were changing. Our heroes recognized the evil of our ways and were showing us the way we ought to behave as a society and individuals.

Then there was the explosive element of Viet Nam, student protests, drugs and sex and rock and roll. Gunsmoke was out of its element. True, the values we had been learning on Saturday nights had been planted and blossomed. Westerns became passee, cowboys associated with racism. The morals that Gunsmoke gave us didn't fade though. We may have strayed from our Saturday nights at home with the family watching the tube into the abyss of sex and drugs and rock and roll but we held tight to those principles that Gunsmoke so surreptitiously taught, equality under the law, fairness, honesty. Even our mission in Viet Nam played back to those values.. we were going to help the weak against the strong incursion of the evil Red Empire. This was what America was all about, or so we thought in our more lucid moments. Like Matt Dillon we were going to ride to the rescue of the down trodden, the over run, the weak. We were Marshall Dillon riding high in the saddle.. our morality as large as Arness himself. Those who served carried these principles forward into action. Those who didn't felt that their efforts to stop the war were also based on the things we learned watching Gunsmoke.

As mentioned in a previous blog, what truly amazes this writer is the caliber of writing on Gunsmoke, Paladin and indeed most Westerns including Wagon Train and The Virginia. The writing augmented the message. The stories were life lessons, morality plays. Those Western helped form our modern values. I miss the caliber of shows but am gratefull that they are available on DVD.. and now on channels such as the Western Channel. If the reader can find DVD's or broadcasts of Gunsmoke, I suggest the reader take time and watch. You will be amazed at how influential Gunsmoke and other Westerns were. Why they got such a bad rap in later years confuses me. I guess the level of killing, all in the line of duty, was unacceptable. I guess our tastes changed. All that aside there will never be another television show with the power of Gunsmoke. This humble writer smells an opportunity... a movie of Gunsmoke. It's going to happen.

For this writer I have set aside my middays to watch Gunsmoke, I scower the shelves at Sam's for DVD's of these and other shows and I revel in the glory and greatness of 1950-60's television. God bless James Arness.. a hero both on and off the television screen.