Gunsmoke
Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for keeping the law and respectability in Dodge City in this western action-drama. Gunsmoke captured the courage, character and spirit of the Western Frontier.
- 1955-1975
- 20 seasons
- CBS
- Action & Adventure
- TV-PG
Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for keeping the law and respectability in Dodge City in this western action-drama. Gunsmoke captured the courage, character and spirit of the Western Frontier.
Season 16 Episode Guide
24 Episodes 1970 - 1971
Episode 1
Chato
Mon, Sep 14, 1970 60 mins
Chato is a mixed-race Native American with a serious grudge against lawmen. He also has a remarkable athletic ability: he can run and jump over mountain ledges while keeping up a steady fire with his rifle. After an exciting duel, he kills a friend of Matt Dillon's who was tracking him. Matt comes to New Mexico and engages him in a duel of wits with Chato to catch him. Chato's one soft spot is his common-law wife. She is shot and severely injured by a group of renegade tribesmen who were also gunning for Chato. Chato calls a truce with Matt so the group can escape and get her to a doctor - but it's only a truce.
Episode 2
The Noose
Mon, Sep 21, 1970 60 mins
Ex-con Fred Garth seeks to exactly re-create the hanging death of his father by casting Doc as the father and Matt Dillon as the young Garth (who was shot in the leg and tied to a post while his father swung). Garth kidnaps Matt, Doc, Kitty and Festus and isolates them in a deserted town.
Episode 3
Stark
Mon, Sep 28, 1970 60 mins
Adam Bramley, an immature selfish young man, has escaped from prison. Lewis Stark is a bounty hunter who catches him, then blackmails him for money with Bramley's father, John, a rancher with a serious heart condition. Adam's strong-willed sister Glory, has the ranch hands beat up Stark, while John pays him off to leave. Adam finally has an epiphany just as his father is dying of a heart attack.
Episode 4
Sam McTavish M.D.
Mon, Oct 5, 1970 60 mins
The arrival of the first woman doctor in Dodge City, Dr. Sam McTavish, riles Doc Adams. However, she soon wins his confidence and that of his patients, and the two physicians make a startling medical discovery.
Episode 5
Gentry's Law
Mon, Oct 12, 1970 60 mins
The Gentry brothers catch old trapper Floyd killing another cow on the ranch and in an attempt to scare him they string him up for a fake hanging that goes wrong resulting in Old Man Floyd's death.
Episode 6
Snow Train: Part 1
Mon, Oct 19, 1970 60 mins
Matt, Doc and Festus are on a train in the snow-capped Rockies. Indians stop the train by blocking the tracks in front and behind the train. Someone aboard sold the Indians a bad batch of whiskey that has killed or blinded those who consumed it. The Indians want the guilty turned over to them and will attack in the morning. Matt has his hands full keeping order as the train occupants want to take justice into their own hands. Matt makes a desperate decision. Festus will create a diversion while Matt gets off the train and heads to the nearest telegraph station, which is miles away. The ploy works but three Indian braves, not fooled by it, are in pursuit of Matt.
Episode 7
Snow Train: Part 2
Mon, Oct 26, 1970 60 mins
Matt avoids capture by the three Indian braves and continues on to the telegraph station. Exhausted, he finds out the telegraph lines are down. However, an advisory was issued before while the lines were still operating and Matt finds out who aboard the train sold the bad whiskey to the Indians. Matt borrows a horse from the telegraph operator and heads back to the train. Festus, meantime, is overpowered by panicky train passengers determined to give the Indians the guilty parties. They settle on two men who, it turns out, are deserters from the Army. The men protest, saying they had nothing to do with the whiskey. Matt gets back just in time to prevent the Indians from killing the soldiers. One of the guilty passengers tries to shoot it out with Matt but is killed. The other, whose pregnant wife is aboard the train, prepares to turn himself over to the Indians. Matt, however, convinces the Indians to let the surviving guilty man stand trial. The ordeal, while resolved, will cause major changes in the lives of the passengers, including an engaged couple, a pair of spinster sisters and a con man posing as a priest.
Episode 8
Luke
Mon, Nov 2, 1970 60 mins
Luke Dangerfield is shot by a bounty hunter Moses Reedy. Luke's young protégé Austin brings Luke to Dodge City. It turns out that Luke used to live in Dodge before, and now one of his last wishes is to see his daughter Kathy, whom he abandoned (along with her mother) years ago. While searching for Kathy, Austin learns from a saloon girl Doris that Kathy is dead. For $25, Doris agrees to pretend to be Kathy, to appease Austin, and to comfort the dying Luke. Several things happen next: 1. Doc Adams makes Luke well again. 2. The bounty hunter Moses comes to Dodge to collect his bounty. 3. Doris takes genuine liking to Luke. 4. Austin plans an escape and also challenges Moses. 5. Matt steps in.
Episode 9
The Gun
Mon, Nov 9, 1970 60 mins
Randy, a teenaged bank clerk living in a shack, idolizes a notorious gunfighter and has wallpapered every room with newspaper articles and posters about the man. One night, the gunfighter, hunted by everyone, ducks into the shack. Randy's thrill over meeting his idol goes sour when the gunfighter, who's gone completely paranoid, berates him and then forces him at gunpoint to break into the bank to steal getaway money. Randy manages to distract the gunfighter and duck down, crawling between the bank desks as the gunfighter fires on him. Randy finds a revolver in a desk drawer, comes up and pulls trigger, dropping the gunfighter in his tracks. When news of the gunfighter's death, and who killed him, gets on the telegraph wires, a St. Louis reporter comes out to anoint Randy the new king of the gunfighters. This makes Randy a target for anyone wanting the title. The reporter even imports a hired gun to shoot it out with Randy in a sort of Ultimate Gunfighting Championship, much to Randy's dismay and that of Matt, who's disgusted by all the publicity.
Episode 10
The Scavengers
Mon, Nov 16, 1970 60 mins
Piney Biggs wanders tired and thirsty into what's left of a family's camp site that has been massacred with no survivors. As he is scavenging through the remains a band of Indians come by and Piney is forced to play dead. He later identifies them as the attackers and tells the people of Dodge that he had been traveling with the family and he is the only survivor. A posse is formed to hunt them down. The Indians are captured by a slimy band of bounty hunters who find Piney's story suspicious.
Episode 11
The Witness
Mon, Nov 23, 1970 60 mins
When Ira Pickett is accused of murdering a man in a gunfight, his father Osgood comes to Dodge City to get rid of the witnesses by one means or another.
Episode 12
McCabe
Mon, Nov 30, 1970 60 mins
Matt Dillon boards a train looking for a fugitive named McCabe wanted for robbery. When he finds him, McCabe, with a woman at gunpoint forces Dillon to make a deal. Dillon agrees and they set off for McCabe's farm where his wife lies dying. She dies before they arrive and McCabe's son Dodie feels nothing but anger and bitterness towards his father for leaving them alone all these years. Dodie alerts the nearby town, where he is wanted for a far more serious crime, that his father is back.
Episode 13
The Noonday Devil
Mon, Dec 7, 1970 60 mins
Anthony Zerbe plays the roles of twins, Heraclio and Hernando Cantrell. The former is an outlaw who was expelled from the Franciscan order; the latter is a devout Franciscan priest. The brothers' reunion leads to a dramatic clash between their vocational choices, and Matt Dillon is caught in the middle.
Episode 14
Sergeant Holly
Mon, Dec 14, 1970 60 mins
An Army sergeant is accused of desertion and the theft of an Army payroll.
Episode 15
Jenny
Mon, Dec 28, 1970 60 mins
A strict judge interferes when Newly allows an outlaw to make arrangements for his 10-year-old daughter, and to surrender afterwards.
Episode 16
Captain Sligo
Mon, Jan 4, 1971 60 mins
Boston whaling captain Aaron Sligo suddenly forsakes the sea entirely. He moves to Kansas, buys a ranch and ceremoniously sets up a plaque on the 100th meridian of longitude, which he says is as far from the sea as possible in the United States. He then becomes a cattle buyer, ordering a shipment of cows from Texas, while courting the widow next door. The widow resists his courtship until he proves that he can grow corn, knowing the soil on Sligo's lot is notoriously infertile. But Sligo hasn't lost all of his seafaring identity or his skills. He still dresses in full uniform, builds his house in the shape of a ship, and brings his first mate along to serve as ranch foreman. When a rival cattleman pulls a dirty trick on Sligo which prevents him from bringing his cows to market (by spreading a rumor of brucellosis among the herd) and when the rancher's hands beat the first mate to a pulp, Sligo uses his pugilistic skills to even the playing field -- and some mysterious skill to get the corn to grow.
Episode 17
Mirage
Mon, Jan 11, 1971 60 mins
Festus fatally wounds an outlaw deep in the desert, then finds himself without water when the outlaw dies. Making his way back to Dodge City, Festus hallucinates and may have killed the innocent young Adam Cleary before reaching Dodge. Adam's father, Lemuel comes to seek revenge, and Festus cannot remember what happened.
Episode 18
The Tycoon
Mon, Jan 25, 1971 60 mins
Festus tries to go into the freight business and it nearly results in matrimony.
Episode 19
Jaekel
Mon, Feb 1, 1971 60 mins
Carl Jaekel and Beth Wilson were a couple a decade ago, when his temper caused him to kill a man who had insulted her. After eight years in prison, he foils an escape attempt by killing two other prisoners, and is granted a pardon. What the warden doesn't know is that Jaekel has gone completely psychotic and engineered the escape attempt himself, killing his partners in an attempt to look heroic when they were found out. What Jaekel doesn't know is that Beth, who wrote sympathetic letters to him throughout his imprisonment, is actually deathly afraid of him. Without telling him, she found a kindly gentleman whom she married, and now is the mother of a young daughter. Beth keeps up the charade for a while when Jaekel gets out, but he's bound to find out eventually -- and he does, kidnapping Beth's daughter in an effort to force her into repudiating her husband and taking up with him again.
Episode 20
Murdoch
Mon, Feb 8, 1971 60 mins
Bob Random, making his last "Gunsmoke" appearance, plays still another rebellious teenaged son. This time he is out to spite his lawman father who is fanatically hunting a notorious outlaw gang. Scott (Random) has secretly joined the gang himself under the alias of "John Doe." Only about half the gang's members' names are known, so there are John Doe arrest warrants on the rest of them for a series of crimes -- some committed long before Scott and a young friend joined the gang. When the gang invades Dodge to try to knock over the freight office for a big payroll, Matt and the lawman are waiting. The ensuing wild gunfight leaves two of the four known gang members dead and the other teenager seriously wounded. To save his friend from dying from peritonitis, Scott surrenders and gets his friend to Doc, but insists that he and the friend are both "John Does" -- and could hang for crimes they never committed. Matt and Lucas Murdoch must somehow track down the last two gang members and persuade them to clear Scott's name even though it means nothing to them.
Episode 21
Cleavus
Mon, Feb 15, 1971 60 mins
Cleavus, an old friend of Festus, has been dogged by poverty and hard luck all his life. He stumbles into a gold mine looking for help -- only to accidentally kill the miner. While driving the miner's corpse to a farm for burial, Cleavus finds $200 worth of gold dust -- a big chunk of money for 1873 -- in his clothing. This gives Cleavus an idea. In Dodge, he learns that the miner's claim hadn't been registered yet and falsely claims title to it himself. With his new money, he buys fancy store clothes and affects himself as a dandy. He even begins paying court to Kitty Russell. Festus finds out part of the truth about Cleavus and Kitty finds out the rest -- the mine actually held only the limited amount of gold and a lot of iron pyrite -- "fool's gold." Cleavus's luck goes downhill from there.
Episode 22
Lavery
Mon, Feb 22, 1971 60 mins
Lavery is a ne'er-do-well small-time crook who does pretty much what he wants -- much to the distress of his wife, who's a Long Branch saloon-hall girl. Now Lavery is on the run for horse theft (he actually left his tired horse at the barn in trade for a new one). Lavery gets his chance at redemption when he sees a thug about to bushwhack Matt and shoots the thug dead. Matt has a talk with the stable owner and clears Lavery of the charge, and gets him a job tanning hides. But Lavery's two outlaw buddies soon show up to try to get him to start stealing again. Added to the confusion is the fact that Mrs. Lavery, who quit her job at the Long Branch when her husband got a job, is now pregnant.
Episode 23
Pike: Part 1
Mon, Mar 1, 1971 60 mins
Riding away from Dodge after a $2800 robbery, four bandits escape into the windy night. With one of them wounded it seems like a three-way split until Pike, the wounded one, surprises the other three.
Episode 24
Pike: Part 2
Mon, Mar 8, 1971 60 mins
Dirty Sally becomes smitten with the outlaw Pike as he continues to heal up and the gang begins tracking Pike down.The friendship between the two grows as Pike is faced with leaving or standing his ground with the gang.