Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786304059678 Format: Color ISBN: 6304059671 Label: Starmaker Entertainment Manufacturer: Starmaker Entertainment Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Starmaker Entertainment Release Date: 1996-04-16 Running Time: 91 Studio: Starmaker Entertainment Theatrical Release Date: 1994-02-10
Customer Rating: Summary: A unique theme for a Gunsmoke episode Comment: In the hundreds of episodes of Gunsmoke, Dodge City seemed to be in a
time capsule - unchanging. This contributed to its classic and classy
quality. The final made-for-TV Gunsmoke movie changed this with the
recurring theme that retiree Matt Dillon was approaching the threshold
of the 20th century. This is acceptable because, after all, Wyatt Earp
lived well into the 1920s. Signs of modernity included eyeglasses
on an reservation Indian, a victrola in a baudyhouse,
turmoil in Revolutionary Mexico, a bandit leader who perhaps escaped
famine in Europe and not an American civil war survivor. But most of all,
a lever-action shotgun that changed the odds in the final gunfight.
The signs of change added to this movie, like the
Bicycle Scene in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
Matt Dillon is depicted as becoming a successful cattle rancher after starting
his retirement as a humble trapper in the first Gunsmoke movie
"Return To Dodge."
Nostalgic baby boomers who enjoy the legendary Gunsmoke series might
be inspired by how the legendary US marshal made a second career
in an age before pensions and social security.
It is extraordinary when fictional characters take on a life in our
collective imaginations. One can think of Don Quixote in Spain,
Sherlock Holmes in London, Evangeline in Louisiana, Huckleberry Finn
on the Mississippi River, Captain Nemo on the ocean floor.
Matt Dillon and his friends in Dodge City, Kansas, have achieved
the same iconic stature
