Dodge City by Tom Clavin

This review originally appeared at Macmillan's Criminal Element.

The Wyatt Earp myth is spent, taking its place alongside Bingham’s Washington crossing the Delaware and Paul Revere shouting “The British are coming!” Sure, there’s an element of truth to the timeworn renditions, but we’ve finally passed over a transom where the reality is now far more entertaining and gripping than the malarkey, in short, we’ve grown up. In the author’s note, Tom Clavin writes, “… most research sources revealed that legend and fact often overlapped and that the facts about the lives of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson before, during, and after Dodge City were usually at least as satisfying as the fictions.”

Earp’s myth, via Hollywood mainly, has seen a lot of mileage out of the honorable-above-reproach-lawman song, who even at his worse (see, for example, Wyatt’s vendetta ride) appears merited in all that he did—that the ends justified the means. Even as I write this, you can bet your Buntline Special that a screenwriter is putting the finishing touches on yet another stagnant showdown at the O.K. Let’s hope the producers rip up that script and read Tom Clavin’s clear-headed novel. And the beauty is that in a gifted historian writer’s hands (ala David McCullough and Joseph Ellis), the fact sheet can still have a cinematic thrust. Observe this meeting between Old West titans: 

When Bat stepped off the train, he had an ivory-handled six-gun on each hip and a double-barreled shotgun in his hands. Wyatt waited for him, along with Bassett, Frank McLain, Neil Brown, and several other men wearing pistols. Bat was curious as to the whereabouts of Doc Holliday, who he knew had joined Wyatt in Kansas City, but with the men already here—and this was just the reception committee; likely there were more in town—there was plenty of firepower.

Wyatt and Bat greeted each other. Though different men physically—Wyatt tall and slender, Bat of average height and stocky—their grins were the same, indicating pleasure to see each other, even though the reunion was to settle a matter that might risk their lives. Then they set off, natural leaders, the rest of the men flanking them, starting down the dusty streets of Dodge City, ready for one last showdown to preserve the peace.

Damn, but didn’t that put me right there in the lawless, tumbleweed-strewn town. Another perk to perusing these pages was gaining a fuller picture of Bat Masterson, as Mr. Clavin writes “[he] was no one’s Walter Brennan, Andy Devine, or Slim Pickens.” He was opinionated, willing to back up beliefs with force if pushed, and widely known as a man who could put away drink after drink, remaining happy-go-lucky.

Bat and Wyatt shared a bond in that they both came from clans of tight-knit brothers, and both lawmen lost a sibling in the line of duty. Bat witnessed his brother Ed, who was trying to disarm a drunken cowboy, get shot down. The assassination happened at such close range that Ed’s vest lit on fire as he stumbled across the street before collapsing.

Ed lived in a room above the saloon, and Bat and a couple of men brought him there, blood leaving a trail up the boot-worn steps. Soon after a doctor arrived, he informed Bat that there was nothing to be done for Ed. In an anguished whisper, Bat said, “This will just about kill Mother,” recalling all the times he had been told to watch out for his mild-mannered brother. “She’ll never forgive me for letting him get killed in this town.” Bat was already certain he would never forgive himself.

… 

Bat sat beside his brother, holding Ed’s hand. During the next thirty minutes, what was left of the young marshal’s life ebbed away. Then, without regaining consciousness and thus unaware of his brother’s tears, Ed Masterson died.

Author Loren D. Estleman says, “Tom Clavin’s Dodge City is a lesson in historical reporting, exhaustively researched and enthusiastically written with all the page-turning drive of a modern thriller. He’s swept aside a century of cheesy myth to excavate the far more fascinating reality that lay beneath.”

Agreed. This reader enjoyed walking the streets of Dodge once again, and yet it felt like the first time.

---

David Cranmer is the editor of the BEAT to a PULP webzine and whose own body of work has appeared in such diverse publications as The Five-Two: Crime Poetry Weekly, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, LitReactor, Macmillan’s Criminal Element, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Under the pen name Edward A. Grainger he created the Cash Laramie western series. He's a dedicated Whovian who enjoys jazz and backgammon. He can be found in scenic upstate New York where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Dodge City and Me

Dodge City and Me

Troy D. Smith

I love me some Gunsmoke.

And I’m clearly not the only one. Gunsmoke is the 

longest running dramatic series in television history 

–broadcast from 1955 till 1975, for a total of 20 seasons. 

Law and Order, a show I also love, managed to tie this feat 

–but with a caveat. The cast of L&O turned over several 

times during its run, with none of the original ensemble 

group making it the whole time. In fact, the longest tenure 

of any original first-season L&O character was five seasons 

(Mike Noth’s Det. Logan, although he did appear several 

seasons in the spinoff Criminal Intent.)








On the other hand, the four main characters introduced 

in the first episode of Gunsmoke had staying power. 

Marshal Matt Dillon remained the central protagonist for 

all 20 seasons. Doctor “Doc” Galen Adams also appeared 

for 20 seasons, although he missed most of Season 17 due 

to heart surgery. Miss Kitty made it for 19, leaving before 

the final year. Even the short-timer, Chester Goode, made 

it partway into the ninth season.










Kelsey Grammer’s “Frasier Crane” character tied Matt 

Dillon for longest run of an actor in a television role 

–but there is a similar caveat there. Frasier was not 

introduced on Cheers until the third season, and for two 

years was only a recurring guest rather than a featured 

cast member. James Arness brought Matt Dillon to the 

small screen as the main character of a program for 

twenty consecutive years –plus a series of TV movies, 

from 1987 till 1994. So in a way, James Arness played 

Matt Dillon for closer to 40 years.













But even twenty years is a big chunk of time. When 

Gunsmoke premiered my father was eleven years old. 

When it was cancelled I was almost eight –and when 

the final TV movie featuring retired marshal Matt Dillon 

aired, I was 26 and a father myself. To this day, love of 

Gunsmoke continues to be one of the bonds between my 

father and me, and we discuss it often.








I remember watching “The Deadly Innocent” with my 

grandma –and IMDB.com informs me this was on 

Dec. 17, 1973. I distinctly remember watching “The Tarnished 

Badge” –in which Victor French, whom I recognized as the 

kindly Isaiah Edwards from Little House on the Prairie, played 

a vicious sheriff that Matt had to bring to justice. The next day I 

re-enacted the story with my Marx cowboy action figures on the 

red clay banks behind our home (Johnny West was Matt Dillon, 

and Pat Garrett was the evil sheriff.) Whenever I think of that 

episode, I smell that red clay. That was Nov. 11, 1974.








That year my mom was in the hospital for awhile. My 

step-father, my older cousin, and I were on our own for 

several days. I remember our efforts to make breakfast 

that Sunday morning… the result being biscuits so hard 

you could break a window with them, and gravy so thick 

it was hard to pull the spoon out of it. And we watched 

the two-part episode “Island in the Desert,” in which 

Festus was held captive by a crazed prospector played by 

the great Strother Martin (who had a pet rattlesnake named 

Homer.) In a bizarre sort of family tradition, for years 

afterward we delighted ourselves in imitating Martin’s 

distinctive nasal voice: “Bite’im, Homer!” “I’ll cut ye, Festus, 

and I’ll cut ye good!” That was early December, 1974.








When I was 18 I had a job buffing floors at Wal-mart 

–back in the days when such stores actually closed at 

night, from 9pm till 9am. The floor guys would be locked 

in overnight. The other floor guy became my best friend 

–and he was a huge Gunsmoke fan. Syndicated repeats 

showed on the local Fox outlet at 10 pm every weeknight… 

when we were at work, yet before the rest of the employees 

went home and got out of our way. We had a contraband 

VCR tape that we kept hidden above the ceiling tiles in the 

janitor’s closet… every night, just after we got to work, we’d 

secretly stick it into one of the display TV/VCR’s, turn it to 

the proper channel, and push record. Every morning at 2am 

we’d retrieve it and watch Gunsmoke on our lunch break. 

Those are some great memories. And beyond that, the steady 

western diet contributed to me writing my own western stories 

at night while locked in those stores, never dreaming that I 

would one day be a published author.








I’m willing to bet that many of you have your own Gunsmoke stories, 

and I invite you to share them in your comments.


It’s hard to get out of Dodge.

Gunsmoke: Chronicling Dodge City, from Radio to Television

Troy D. Smith


Boy- how about that John Meston?

Some of you are nodding silently. Many of you, though, have never heard of John Meston. Not many people have, anymore, or know what a big influence he had on popular culture.

Meston started working for CBS radio in the 1940s, initially in the program practices department and soon thereafter as a writer. By the early 1950s, Meston and his friend Norman MacDonnell (a director and producer) set out to create a new kind of radio program: a western, but not one like The Lone Ranger and other popular shows aimed at kids. The two men, both in their late 30s at the time, were charged by their boss Hubell Robinson (CBS programming chief) to do a western series for adults, a serious drama rather than a melodrama.

They discovered a project that had been shelved for three years, meant to be a cross between westerns and hardboiled detective stories starring a tough lawman named Mark Dillon. They kept the "hardboiled" approach, and made a slight change to the hero's name: he would be Matt Dillon, and the program would be called Gunsmoke. It would be a tough, hard-bitten show, reflecting the rigors and vicissitudes of frontier life. Sometimes the innocent would suffer. The hero would be brave, but flawed in some ways and afflicted with occasional self-doubt and a good bit of cynicism (like any good hardboiled detective). The germ may have appeared in earlier scripts that never made it to the airwaves, but everything else was created by Norman MacDonnell and John Meston. This included the supporting characters: Doc Adams, Miss Kitty, and Chester.

Gunsmoke debuted on the radio in 1952, and was a hit. It was praised for its realism; it was one of the most explicit (for the time) programs on radio. McDonnell produced and directed, and Meston was the head writer. He wrote roughly 80% of the scripts in the show's first four seasons, fleshing out the characters (other episodes were written by McDonnell, Les Crutchfield, Kathleen Hite, John Dunkel, and a handful of others... Marian Clark would later also join the team and write many episodes).

What little the audience learned about Matt Dillon came from the mind of John Meston. Matt had been a wild young cowboy who spent several years on the border in Arizona and New Mexico. He could easily have become an outlaw, considering the company he kept -many of his old friends did- but he was inspired by an older lawman, who turned him onto the right path (in those early years it was common for Matt to meet old friends from his border days, and they were always extremely surprised that he had become a lawman.) Another marker of a Meston story: he often found ways to work his home town of Pueblo, Colorado into the dialogue. A surprising number of guest stars were on their way to or from Pueblo.

CBS decided to turn Gunsmoke into a television show, which debuted in 1955 with an all-new cast (and a new last name for Chester, who went from Proudfoot to Goode). The radio show continued simultaneously, and would run until 1961. Meston and most of the other radio writers started producing scripts for the TV show as well, many of them adapted from past radio episodes. This was relatively easy to do, as both the radio and TV versions ran for 30 minutes, Sometimes the radio origin of a TV episode is obvious in the title; the updated versions often changed the names of guest characters who appeared by their original names in the title.

MacDonnell, however, did not get to run the TV series, at least not at first: the netork hired Charles Marquis Warren as producer (and director of most episodes), with MacDonnell subservient to him. Except MacDonnell was NOT subservient to him, and the two feuded vigorously, leading Warren to quit halfway through the second season, at which point MacDonnell took over the reins completely.

The radio program was canceled in 1961, after nine seasons. The TV version underwent major changes at the same time: with season 7 (1961-1962), they expanded to a full hour. This meant the stories were no longer as tight, and in the eyes of many, no longer as dramatic and affecting. More emphasis was put on the guest-star-of-the-week, and gradually some of the show's hard edge wore off. The stories no longer tended to be as dark and somber as they had been in the first several years. Another notable change: Marshal Dillon no longer moped around the graveyard as much. During the half-hour era, many episodes started with a voice-over monologue by the marshal as he wandered through Boot Hill. We learned more about Matt's internal life and thought process in these scenes, probably, than in the rest of the series put together. Turns out Matt was cynical, and even bitter at times. He seemed to hate his job, and the necessity of killing so many people and dealing so much with the ugly side of human nature. He also had a pretty low opinion of the riff-raff with which he was forced to fill up the cemetery. Of course, those monologues added to the hardboiled atmosphere and helped set the dark tone for the stories. If one were to view the series from the inside out, as a progression of stories instead of a TV production subject to external forces, I think it would be safe to assume that the fact Matt quit going to the graveyard and agonizing so much over his part in filling it indicated he had either found internal peace and accepted his role, or that he gradually became more hardened to it.

In all, Meston wrote 183 of the radio episodes (out of 413). He went on to write 196 (of 635) TV episodes. That is 44% of the radio shows (mostly in the first four seasons) and nearly a third of the television episodes... plus 64 more that were adapted by someone else from his original radio stories. The very first episode of the TV show ("Matt Gets It") was a Charles Marquis Warren adaptation of a Meston radio script; the last episode of season ten was the final original teleplay by Meston ("He Who Steals," which centered on Festus). The first half of the show's 20-year run, and the entire Chester era, bore the heavy mark of Meston, who died in 1979. Norman MacDonnell, who also left Gunsmoke in 1965, passed away in 1979 just a few months after Meston.

Favorite Western TV Series: Gunsmoke

Troy D. Smith

I have no problem picking my favorite Western TV series- it's the grand-daddy of them all, Gunsmoke. I would have trouble picking my #2- I'm also a huge fan of Have Gun: Will Travel and Maverick, as well as more recent shows like Deadwood. But my first love is Dodge City. And why not? It's the most iconic of the "adult" westerns to hit the tube in the 1950s, running for twenty seasons.

I don't need to describe the show for you. You know about Marshal Dillon, Miss Kitty, Doc Adams, and the rest. Instead, at the end of this article, I will post links to several essays I have written about different aspects of the show at my own blog.

For today I will focus on my favorite episode. Now that's a tough one, there are probably dozens of contenders. But the one I always go back to is an episode from the Eighteenth season, "A Quiet Day in Dodge." (note: okay, the two-part "Island in the Desert" would be #2.)

The episode first aired on January 29, 1973, so I probably saw it in its first run. It's one of the humorous episodes, thrown in now and then to break the tension, and while it's quite funny that's not the main reason I like it so much. I like what it tells us about Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty, and their relationship.

The story opens with Matt riding into town just after dawn, a prisoner in tow. He locks the guy up, and then retires to his own cot- he has been up for 36 hours, and all he wants out of life right now is a peaceful sleep.

But he's not going to get it.

As the day progresses, an increasingly rumpled and grumpy Marshal Dillon has to deal with a host of problems, all designed to keep the sandman away.

Festus, who is apparently one of those annoying, chipper morning people, makes an ungodly racket cleaning fish in the office.

Matt's prisoner stabs him in the hand with a fork.

A young whippersnappery rapscallion, with overly permissive parents, terrorizes the town.

A crotchety old lady harangues the marshal over what she deems his lapses in duty (played by Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West herself.)

A brawl breaks out in the Long Branch, started by two grizzled old miners.

But the worst of it all... Miss Kitty is royally ticked off at Matt. It seems they had a picnic scheduled for the day before, which had been put off several times, and -yet again -Matt missed it because of work.

Finally, by the end of the day, Matt has managed to solve all the problems (including that of the kid, whom he gives a good spanking.) He even patches things up with Kitty; she makes him a special dinner, which they share in her room. It is pretty obvious what Miss Kitty has in mind for dessert.

This is one of the very rare glimpses we get into what goes on behind closed doors between the two longtime paramours. Remember that Toby Keith song, when he said Matt never did hang his hat at Kitty's place? Well, he does... and with a very domestic sort of familiarity.

But then, Kitty turns her back for a moment.... and the exhausted marshal is stretched out on her bed, snoring like a banshee. Not quite what she had in mind. The quietly fuming Miss Kitty breaks a porcelain pot to see if it'll waken her beau, but he doesn't stir. She marches downstairs to the bar -pouring beer over the heads of the two miners -then heads out the front door. The ever-protective bartender Sam calls after her, "It's awfully late, you might be molested!"

She laughs sarcastically and says "Really!" The implication, of course, was that she had been trying all day.

For the better part of two decades, the real relationship between Matt and Kitty was sort of between the lines. In this episode, we finally get an idea what they had been up to upstairs all those years. Although... not on that particular day.

Click on this link to see a blooper from the episode, in which the Wicked Witch cracks up the whole cast with a very unexpected ad-lib: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ngveiYIaeQ

And here are my previous blogs about the show:

Gunsmoke, Dodge City, and Me

Marshal of What, Exactly?

Chester vs. Festus

Matt Dillon's Dodge City: A Historian's Nightmare