The Best Episodes of Gunsmoke Season 12

Disturbed over being forced to kill a prisoner who was trying to save his life, Matt Dillion turns in his badge.

Director: Mark Rydell

Writer: N/A

A gang of thieves commandeers the Dodge City blacksmith shop to divide a gigantic bar of gold.

Director: Vincent McEveety

Writer: N/A

Six years after her husband's hanging, Ma Stone plots her revenge against Matt Dillon by first kidnapping Kitty to use as a lure and then jailing Matt to be hanged on the morning of the second day with Kitty watching as her man died.

Director: Vincent McEveety

Writer: N/A

Marshal Dillon is helped by an apparently friendly young runaway who later faces him as a deadly adversary.

Director: Mark Rydell

Writer: N/A

A respectable rancher and his son hang an innocent man and allow a bewhiskered bounty hunter to go on trial for the murder.

Director: Robert Totten

Writer: N/A

A gunfighter (McGavin) hired to murder Matt Dillion gets wounded while trying to save the life of an elderly Chinese man.

Director: Mark Rydell

Writer: N/A

Hootie Kyle is a poor but honest farmer whose credit has run out. Matt Dillon and Festus lend him some money, then he gets swindled out of it in a poker game. Later Hootie gets circumstantially framed for the murder of the card shark who swindled him.

Director: Robert Totten

Writer: N/A

After eight years in a prison for robbery a farmer returns home and hopes to find the stolen fortune he had buried under a tree.

Director: Vincent McEveety

Writer: N/A

All of Dodge City is suffering from a drought. A rainmaker (Guy Raymond) tries to put an end to it before the town's public well, their last source of water, runs dry.

Director: Marc Daniels

Writer: Francis M. Cockrell

Doc Adams takes up arms to defend a gold shipment from bandits, first during a stagecoach ambush and then at a weigh station. He is aided by a blind man and a wounded man in the battle against the bandits.

Director: Irving J. Moore

Writer: N/A

Lars Karlgren, a Scandinavian immigrant and his teenage son Petter, find the West even wilder than they had imagined when they settle in Dodge City. Petter gets framed for a murder of a man who was picking a fight with him.

Director: Robert Totten

Writer: N/A

The identity of a criminal is confused with that of deputy marshal Thad, when a Quaker party rescues the pair from a do-or-die fight.

Director: Bernard L. Kowalski

Writer: N/A

A young farmer's former partner-in-crime, girlfriend and slow-witted brother figure in the discovery of his forgotten past.

Director: N/A

Writer: Paul Savage

Bull Bannock (Alan Hale), retired heavyweight champion of the world, attempts to make a home for himself in Dodge City, and tries to buy Miss Kitty's Longbranch Saloon.

Director: Marc Daniels

Writer: N/A

To Marshal Matt Dillon and his deputies falls their grimmest task in many years-- the hanging of a ruthless gunman.

Director: Bernard L. Kowalski

Writer: N/A

A vengeful prisoner poses a continual threat to the life of Marshal Matt Dillon.

Director: Robert Totten

Writer: N/A

Festus Haggen is mistaken for a hired gunman and offered $300 to fight, and run out of town, the 3 sons of a man his cousin is accused of killing.

Director: Charles R. Rondeau

Writer: N/A

A young gunman (Zalman King) falls for one of Kitty's saloon girls (Lane Bradbury) while waiting to kill Marshal Matt Dillon and rob the bank.

Director: Allen Reisner

Writer: N/A

A boy (Eddie Hodges) comes to Dodge City in search of his father only to learn that he is a wanted criminal.

Director: Robert Totten

Writer: N/A

An embittered lawman (Fritz Weaver) seeks revenge against the men who destroyed his town and took away his wife.

Director: Allen Reisner

Writer: N/A

Matt Dillon tries to bring a man to justice in spite of an onslaught of an crazed vengeful lawman wishing to exact his own revenge.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

After eight years as a down-on-his-luck farmer, husband & father, and reformed outlaw (Michael Ansara) tries to make ends meet by rejoinning his old gang to rob the Dodge City freight office.

Director: Marc Daniels

Writer: N/A

Private detectives use Kitty and the daughter (Kim Darby) of an outlaw to trap the girl's fugitive father (Stephen McNally).

Director: Marc Daniels

Writer: N/A

Deputy District Attorney Shephard will do anything to further his career, including having outlaw John Farron killed, instead of being able to give himself up.

Director: Irving J. Moore

Writer: N/A

Kitty's conscience is torn between her sense of obligation to a man (James Daly) who saved her life and her concern for the law and Marshal Matt Dillon.

Director: Marc Daniels

Writer: N/A