Around Dodge City and in the territory on West, there's just one way to handle the killers
of the spoilers and that's with a US Marshal and the spell of Gunsmoke.
Gunsmoke starring William Conrad, the story of the violence that moved West with young
America and the story of a man who moved with it.
I'm that man, Matt Dillon, United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they
want to meet.
It's a chancey job and it makes a man watchful and a little lonely.
The blazing sun and dust, dust everywhere and the hot dry wind from the panhandle baking
your lungs, driving the blood to your brain and going into things you might not even think
of any other time.
And that's what the summer days are like in Dodge City.
But the nights are different.
After sundown when the warm dark lies soft and gentle on the prairie then everything
changes.
Yeah, the nights are fun and it's that blast and killing heat of the day that breeds the
trouble.
Well, I declare, that sure is her, all right.
Huh?
Who are you talking about, Chester?
Who's her?
Lucy.
Huh?
Oh, you remember her, Mr. Dillon.
That girl over here from Hunt took out a long band slew and married last winter.
Lucy was her name.
Lucy Middletown.
Oh.
Lucy Middletown, yes, she's coming down the street there.
Oh, yeah.
First time I saw her in a month of Sundays.
I hear old Lee fried pretty close herd on her.
Looks like she's coming here.
I never could figure them two, Mr. Dillon.
Or she'd ever marry him, I mean.
And 800 acres of mighty good range land.
How are you, Matt?
Hello, Lucy.
How about you?
What you sitting on?
I haven't time, Matt.
I can't let you from now I came here.
Oh, why not?
Why did you come?
Ephraim is going to kill me.
What?
It's true, he told me so.
I know everybody thinks he's so good.
He's studied to be a preacher and all, but he's not good.
He's mean and he's cruel.
I made an awful mistake when I married him and now he won't let me go.
Why does he want to kill you?
He accuses me of things.
Crazy, terrible things.
Oh, do you want to file a charge, have him locked up?
My word against his?
With him always quoting scripture and the like and me six months out of the dance hall?
People can't forget that.
Maybe it's only you who can't forget it, Lucy.
Matt, I've been reminded often enough.
He keeps telling me I'm evil and that he tried to save me.
He said when I married him I led him into sin and now I have to pay.
Oh, what do you want me to do?
Will you talk to him, warn him something?
Oh, Matt, he's crazy.
I don't know what he might do.
Lucy, I can't take a hand in this without more to go on.
Sooner or later you'll have to take a hand in it and if you wait too long you'll have
to bring him in for murder, my murder.
Think about it, Matt.
There you are, Doc.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you, Kitty.
That's good.
Now, what are you grinning at?
I'm not grinning at anything.
I suppose you think if you ply me with beer you can get me fuddled enough to beat me.
I don't drink if it bothers you.
No, it doesn't bother me that much.
Besides, I taught you everything you don't know about yourself.
Come on, Doc, it's your move.
I know, I know.
Don't rush me now.
Hey, that's my man.
I wasn't going to move it.
I was just reaching over it.
Don't get so excited.
Hey, you sure that's the move you want to make?
Well, I moved him, didn't I?
All right.
I'm going to go get some water.
I'll be right back.
You're so smart.
You bet your life on a jump.
Now what are you going to do?
Don't take it so hard, Doc. Have some more beer.
Don't try to get back to my good...
Hey, Doc!
Oh, man, there's many. Matt, over here!
Hi, Doc. Kitty.
Hello, Matt.
How are you?
What are you looking so pleased about, Kitty?
Yeah, she just whooped me in a game of checkers and she's vain as a peacock.
Sit down and I'll play you a game.
Oh?
Do you know what I mean, Matt?
Oh, maybe. Later. I'm looking for you from Hunter right now.
Oh, he was over there at the bar a few minutes ago.
Huh?
Yeah, there he is.
I want to talk to him for a minute. I'll see you later.
Are you getting firm on this?
Maybe that's what I need.
Evening, Mr. Hunt.
Oh, Marshal. Will you join me?
Well, thank you.
Dr. Marshal Dillon-Land. Your...
Evening, maybe, but vast help indeed in banishing the cares of the day.
A man like you shouldn't have any cares, Mr. Hunt.
Care looks everywhere in this vein of tears, Marshal.
Man's brief joy is dearly bought.
You're good fortune, sir.
Luck.
How's the business?
Health is excellent, as it usually is in youth.
A state of grace may be somewhat uncertain.
So?
There's nothing that can't be dealt with.
It's a man's bounden duty in this world to lend his own strength to the frail reeds of his household,
to support them against the storm and strife of this temporal life.
The man is a rock, sir, and the woman a reed swayed by the wind.
But if the rock happens to break the reed...
What about that, Mr. Hunt?
I doubt the rock will break the reed, Marshal.
Good evening, sir.
Good evening.
You were right, Kitty. I got a sermon.
Thought you would.
Kitty.
Hmm?
You knew Lucy pretty well when she worked here, didn't you?
Sure.
Tell me about her. What's she after? What does she want?
Chance to be somebody. But she's hard, Matt. She'll use anybody to get what she wants.
That's why she married a leasen.
Yeah.
But there's something else you might not know, man.
Oh?
There's a young fellow working out there at Ethan's place. Boothrider.
You mean that kid who drifted in a couple of months ago?
Mm-hmm.
Well, how does he figure?
Oh, I don't know. But I do know Lucy. And you can take it from me, Matt. You figure.
Well, it's been fine talking to you, Marshal, but I reckon I better get back to work.
Unless you got something else in your mind.
No, nothing, I guess. I just wondered how things were going.
I like it fine here.
Yeah. I understand Ethan's a good man to work for.
You got no complaints.
Mm-hmm. How'd he get along with Miss Hunt?
Fine. Why?
I just wondered. What you were wearing a gun when he was first rolled in the town?
Mr. Hunt don't hold with guns. He don't pack one himself.
Never had any reason to, I guess.
You got something on your mind, Marshal?
You're a young man, Booth. This is a big world. Why don't you go take a look at it?
Some of the big spreads up north or on out west in the territories.
Marshal, with a setup like I got here, a man would be crazy to pull out.
He might be crazier to stay.
No, I like it fine here.
Just fine.
All right. I can't run you out. It's your life, Booth. As long as it lasts.
My gracious, it is hot.
Yeah.
What in the world are you sitting inside for?
I mean, what little breeze they are, you'd be cool sitting on the porch.
Yeah, I suppose so.
How have you been?
Oh, just kind of dogging around town.
You picked a good night for it.
It ain't so hot if you don't move too fast.
As a matter of fact, doing us a store ain't that bad.
We just sitting there eating pickles and swatting flies.
Pickles? In this heat?
At least there's wet.
Yeah.
You know them new greener rifles that Jonas got in a couple weeks back?
Yeah, what about them?
Well, Jonas sold all eight of them rifles in two weeks.
Old Heapman bought the last one just tonight.
Heapman?
Yes, sir.
He never owned a gun in his life, that I know of.
He does now.
Say, if he never owned one before, I wonder why he bought one now.
I think maybe I know, Chester.
All right.
I'll see you later.
Bo!
What?
Up here on the porch.
You out here buying, Lucy?
Ethan's out in the barn.
Yeah.
Come here, Booth.
Lucy.
He bought a gun, Booth, in town this evening.
Got it out there with him now. He's drinking.
He's going to kill us. Both of us. He told him so.
What'd you tell him?
Nothing. Nothing. He's suspicious, that's all.
Oh, but he's crazy, Booth. He'll do it.
You've got to get that gun away from him.
Yeah.
Well, that might take some doing.
You can do it.
You've got a gun, too, and you know how to use it.
He doesn't know one end from the other.
You've got to do it. It's the only way.
Maybe the Marshal was right.
The guy has stayed here too long.
You can't leave now, Booth.
Can you?
You know I can't.
Then you've got to do it.
It'll be better to face him.
If you don't, he'll lay for you and shoot you in the back and then me.
I know. I know.
Well, it's up to you.
Am I...am I worth it or not?
You're worth it.
Then go on. Now.
What are you going to do, Mr. Jones?
It's got me buffaloed, Chester, all the way out from town.
I've been trying to figure it. I still don't know.
If it ain't stopped, you know where it's going to lead to.
Well, I haven't got a thing to go on.
Because a man buys a gun doesn't prove he's planning a murder.
And sometimes women get the crazy idea they're in danger when they're not.
And a rumor starts easy with a hired handler on the place.
I know.
And the one who ordered me off his property and told me to stay off,
he's got a perfect right to do it.
I was in his...
Come on, Chester.
I guess we should have gone here to the counter, Mr. Jones.
Yeah.
Yeah, over this way, Chester. I came from the barn, not the house.
Came from inside the way it sounded.
Mr. Jones, look.
There's somebody over there on a horse heading down into the river bottom.
Oh, let him go. We'll never catch him in that brush.
Not tonight, anyway.
Just take it easy now.
Mr. Hunt.
Lose the...
Over this way.
Here, Chester.
Mr. Hunt.
Oh, Marshal.
Who did this?
No matter.
It matters to me.
Marshal, I admire you.
You have implicit faith in the law.
When the law covers an old man being a fool,
the lead survive.
Mr. Hunt.
What did you say there at the last, Mr. Jones?
What? Survive?
He met a little sage, Chester.
Oh.
You stay here.
Yes, sir.
Where are you going?
I have to carry the sad news to the grieving widow.
What were you doing out there, Chester?
Look.
Matt.
Who were you expecting?
I thought it was my husband.
What are you doing here?
What is it, Matt? Did something happen?
You heard the shots, didn't you?
I heard some shooting a while ago, but...
What happened?
It's Ephraim, isn't it?
Who else would it be?
I don't know. I...
It was Ephraim.
You really are smart at me, Miss Hunt.
You planned it and you carried it out,
and you'll get away with it clean as a whistle,
and I can't touch you.
What are you talking about?
Your husband's murder.
You're out of your mind.
I guess I should have figured what you were up to,
but I didn't. You were too smart for me.
You killed him without touching a trigger.
You worked young Booth Ryder up to that.
Are you crazy?
You got Ephraim to buy that gun.
You told him Ryder was bothering you,
wouldn't leave you alone, that he was dangerous.
And maybe even hinted he was too old to protect his wife.
So he had a gun in his hand when Booth shot him.
If Booth Ryder shot my husband,
I think he ought to be out looking for him
instead of standing here and insulting me.
Oh, I'll get him all right.
He won't make it far. But what about Booth?
You want me to kill him for his,
he the next one in line?
Do you have any proof of what you're saying?
Not a bit.
Like I said, I can't touch you.
You're too smart for me.
Or else none of it's true.
Have you thought of that?
Oh, yeah, I've thought of that.
There's not much point in talking about it.
Matt.
I...I guess I'll be leaving Dodge soon.
I can't stop you.
You...you could if you wanted to, Matt.
Yeah.
No matter how their quips fall or how often,
here are three people who can't help landing
Funny Side Up.
Hermione Ginggold,
darling of the British Concert Hall.
Parker Fennelly,
famous as Titus Moody,
and scores more comedy characters.
And Kenny Delmore,
the man who turned the Claghorn
into a national comedy institution.
By no coincidence whatsoever,
this threesome turns up every weekday on CBS Radio
and the new daytime comedy hits
Funny Side Up.
These uninhibited people make a topsy-turvy art
of conversation and comic hash
out of every subject they treat.
You'll have no trouble at all keeping your Funny Side Up
when you live it up weekdays
with Her Majesty Hermione
and with Kenny and Parker.
The time, daytime, any weekday,
the place, modesty be hanged,
we'll come right out and admit it,
it's here on CBS Radio.
Listen often for Hermione Ginggold,
Parker Fennelly, and Kenny Delmore
in the bright new comedy hit Funny Side Up,
a great companion to Arthur Godfrey's time
with Robert Q. Lewis
and to Art Linklater's house party
at this same address.
Two days pass with no sign of Boothrider.
I figured he was waiting it out somewhere around town,
waiting to see which way the wind was going to blow,
but he didn't know where.
Then I didn't have much case against him.
It was probably a waste of time,
but I still had to try.
I had to bring him in and try.
Hey, Gene, what you doing?
I just ain't ever saw a hot spell last as long as this one.
It's just an empty, dimed-out, fazlough person.
That's a rough one, all right.
Eight o'clock, almost dark,
and that thermometer ain't dropped one notch yet.
Keeps on lighting this much longer.
I swear it'll drive folks back east.
Here comes somebody I wish would have driven somewhere.
What?
Charlie Belk.
Oh.
I reckon he's hunting somebody
that's taken to a bottle.
Looks like we're going to be honored.
Yeah, I'm afraid we are.
You can't eat noon, Marshal Bill.
I'll have a good chest.
Charlie's real hot tonight, isn't he?
Yes, certainly.
Marshal, I heard the rumor going around.
You might be looking for this fellow Boothrider.
Now that's generally known.
Well, I might be able to tell you where he is right now.
Good, you...
There's enough money for a bottle.
Tell me.
Marshal, I dislike being an informer, of course.
But I feel it's my duty as a citizen to help out.
Well, Marshal, I want you to...
If you got anything to tell me, say it and get out.
Why are you hiding in the hayloft on the livery stable?
What, you got no call?
You got your money, Charlie. Not gonna want. Get out.
All right.
Well, good evening, gentlemen.
All right, sister.
Let's go get Booth.
You reckon he'll put up a fight, Mr. General?
I don't know, Chester. He's a half-baked kid, I'm afraid he might.
It's a bad, gone shame.
You seem to realize when he first came here.
Lucy was too much for him.
Mm-hmm.
There he is.
Yeah.
Watch yourself, Chester. Stay clear.
Yes, sir.
Booth, I know where you are.
Why don't you make it easy on yourself? Come on down and give up.
You got no protection up there.
I can stand here and throw bullets up into that loft as long as I have to until one of them finds you.
All right, it's your last chance, Booth.
Hold it, Marshal.
Stay back, Chester.
All right, Booth, you're under arrest.
No. I ain't giving up that easy.
I ain't giving up that easy.
Don't be a fool.
Now, you hand over that gun.
You haven't got a chance.
If you try to draw, I'll kill you.
Then I reckon you better start your killing.
Well, at least you won't have to stand no cry.
No, he's not dead, Chester. Come on, we'll get him over to Doc's.
Young fellow, now, take it easy now.
I just about got a hold of it.
Now, this could have been a lot worse.
I wish it had been.
Yes, you should. Oh, boy.
Just brace yourself, boy.
There.
Yes, yes.
I'll get a bandage on that now, and you'll live to hang yet.
Provided you don't get locked up.
Why do you have to shoot people in stables, man?
It's the worst place in the world for locked up.
I'll try to remember that, Doc.
How do you feel, Booth?
I'll make out.
You've been hiding at the livery stable all the time?
No.
I circled back and I stayed in the barn up at the hunt place.
I figured you wouldn't be looking there.
You figured right.
That's about all I figured, right?
She was using me, Marshall.
That's what it was.
She told me I went back out there.
She gave me two inch wages.
Told me to drift.
I don't know how you know.
She...
She laughed at me.
And called me a green kid.
I like the name she left him too.
She had no laugh, Marshall.
That's what she figured wrong.
What do you mean?
I choked her to death.
Well, Booth,
they'd probably have let you off clean.
You were in the clear.
He had a gun in his hand even if he didn't know how to use it.
But not now.
Yeah.
I guess it don't matter much now.
It's a funny thing, too, huh?
I was heading up north when I stopped here.
I hit the odds and walked about sundown, so I...
I figured to lay in for the night.
And I met Mr. Hunt in the saloon, and he gave me a job.
I wasn't even to stay here, Marshall.
Yeah, why not?
I was just riding through.
Yes, sir?
You ought to have kept on riding.
["The Tune-Up Again"]
Improved king-size tune-up, the tune-up in a can.
Fill it up, sir.
Yeah, regular's good.
Say, that engine of yours sounds like real tired iron.
Thanks.
Improved king-size tune-up, the tune-up in a can.
You got a valve-stick in tune.
Oh, what do you get to a gallon?
Not much.
Improved king-size tune-up, the tune-up in a can.
Want a tune job?
Haven't got time.
You don't need time.
How can a tune job not take time?
Improved king-size tune-up, mister.
One can in your gasoline and one can in your oil will clean your motor, your carburetor, your plugs.
The works.
And king-size tune-up will unstick those valves, get you more power and smoother performance.
Quicker starting, too.
Okay, but how much?
Dollar and a quarter a can.
Results guaranteed or double your money back.
Would you start her up, please?
Still sounds lousy.
I haven't added it yet.
Improved king-size tune-up, the tune-up in a can.
Gunsmoke.
Produced and directed in Hollywood by Norman McDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
The story was specially written for Gunsmoke by Les Crutchfield.
The editorial supervision by John Metzger.
Featured in the cast were Lynn Allen, Dick Krenna, Joseph Kearns, and Lawrence Souther.
Harley Bair as Sester, Howard McNear as Doc, and Georgia Ellis as Hiddings.