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THE GUNMAN WHO·

KILLED THE GRITICS

When James Arness strides onto the set of TV's "Gunsmoke," a
Stetson on top of his six-foot-six frame, he kicks the pegs out from. under

any notion you've ever had about Western shows. Here is the story

of filmdom's most baffeing enigma-and one of its brightest new stars

by RICHARD GEHMAN

B ack in the fall of 1955, when the programming brain Kitty has never as much a held hands
at CBS-TV decided to schedule a Western show op-
with Matt, yet she's accepted as his
posite BC's George Gobel, there were those in the in- girl friend. Such is the how' subtlety.
dustry who thought the executives had taken leave of
their collective reason. Gobel's show was one of the mo t
popular on the air. He had a monopoly on his time pol.
Among those who laughed was the oversigned, but on
that Saturday night I tuned in CBS at the proper time
just to see what form the lunacy would take. I am still
fond of George Gobel but I have not watched him since,
for on that first Saturday night a huge size-fourteen fool,
.·hod in a cowboy boot and worn by an unknown named
James Arness, kicked the ratings right out from under
him. Tp.e show that starred Arness, "Gun moke," is now
jn its third year and going stronger than · ever. The av-
erage life of a TV series is about three years; after that
the watchers begin to get bored. "Gunsmoke" is heading
into its fourth year a though it is just gathering speed.
will almost certainly do a fifth, and conceivably could do
an unprecedented sixth. It has about 40,000,000 viewer ·
each week. In England, where it is called "Gun Law," jt
is the mo t popular show on TV.
There are several reasons for "Gunsmoke's" popularity,
and several people who are responsible. For one thing, it
characters are convincingly real, as true-
to-life a et of people as ever has been
exhibited on the living-room Monster.
Their personalities and attitudes are noL
black and white; they are shaded and
colored b the entire range of human
emotions. The villains are not all villain-
ous, the heroes are not all pure of heart
( well, they're mostly pure of heart) . The
man responsible for this, originally, wa
the principal writer, John Me ton, and
the man who carried out his original con-
cepts was the ( Conlinaed on page 70)

Realism i:; the keynote of "G un:m10ke." You'll neve1·
see, for insh11H·e, six l ndiant,; downed by one pistol ·hol.

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