A man has been hired to kill Matt, but when he meets and quickly falls in love with a decent girl, he has a change of heart--or does he?

Half Straight

James Arness

Amanda Blake

Dennis Weaver

Milburn Stone

John Meston

Ted Post

He Learned About Women

Catawomper

Ex-con Perce McCall helps to save Matt's life in a shootout, and then falls for a beautiful, but greedy saloon girl who puts him under great pressure to start stealing again.

Perce

Matt becomes suspicious when drifter Frank Cassidy publicly announces his engagement to spinsterish Beulah Parker immediately after the seemingly unrelated murders of an old prospector and her abusive brother Leroy.

Old Yellow Boots

Kitty has her friends in Dodge buzzing when she meets the stage in the early hours to pick up a small boy. All wonder, especially his foster parents: could his real mother be Kitty?

Miss Kitty

A hard man has given his two sons a hard raising, sure that they inherited their mother's bad blood from their murderous ancestor. The old man may be right: one of his sons may be a murderer. Or is it the other son?

Harper's Blood

A man who lost his wife and all he had returns to Dodge from gold prospecting with three bulging bags to deposit in the bank, and all who scorned him before, including his ex-wife, can't do enough for him.

All That

A headstrong young woman will undertake the long, dangerous journey to her fiancé's fort on her own if she must, so Matt nominates himself to escort her.

Long, Long Trail

His mother has been dead almost a year, and Cully is troubled by his pa's carousing. When they discuss his getting married again, it seems like a good idea until he returns from a business trip with a new wife, an Arapaho squaw, who he has conflicted emotions about.

The Squaw

Chester becomes engaged more or less accidentally, but he takes to heart his obligation to his betrothed, leaving his job with Mr. Dillon to devote himself to homesteading a barren quarter section.

Chesterland

The plain but nubile daughter of a hopeless drunkard decides to marry herself off so that she and her little brother might avoid starvation.

Milly

Matt escorts a captain and his troops to an Indian village, to make an exchange for a white woman captured over a year ago.

Indian Ford

A young outlaw finds he has a knack for medicine and turns straight, telling Doc he wants to be his pupil.

Apprentice Doc

A homesteader hires a man to make the appearance of a scandal with his wife so that he can blackmail his wife's wealthy father.

Nina's Revenge

Orkey Cathcart is looking for a wife and sets his sites on Miss Kitty.

Marry Me

Outlaws want Matt to leave Dodge so they can steal from the bank or they will kill a man per day.

A Man a Day

Prospector Harvey Easter settles in Dodge City after striking it rich in the Colorado Rockies. His heavy handed attempts at philanthropy soon have unintended results.

The Do-Badder

A hired man is sweet on his boss's daughter and disliked by his boss. When the boss is killed, his own daughter claims to have done it, but Matt is suspicious.

Lacey

Cody is a well-liked citizen of Dodge. He's building a house and getting married. When he befriends a stranger, his perfect life is turned upside down.

Cody's Code

Beginning with Doc, who rescues him from a ditch, everyone wants to give amiable drunk Dan a chance, or a job, or both.

Old Dan

Chester is getting home-cooked meals from, and giving guitar lessons to, a spirited young woman who hopes thereby to make her estranged sweetheart jealous.

Taken prisoner by a band of comancheros, Chester is helped to escape by one of the band's women and flees with another who may or may not be worthy of his trust.

While returning suspected killer Pruit Dover to Dodge to stand trial, Matt is shot and badly wounded, and yet Dover stays with him and nurses him back to health.

The Gallows

Oren was a rancher who liked his drink, gambling and women, even though he had a pretty wife at home. Matt is forced to kill him and when he breaks the news to her, all she can see is getting revenge for his death, and Matt is her target.

Reprisal

A speculator in land is already unpopular in Dodge, but when he is acquitted of the murder of a man he killed, he finds himself "sent to Coventry": no one in town, not even Kitty, will buy, sell, or even speak to him.

Coventry

A young woman comes to Dodge insisting on an escort to Indian country so that the body of her husband, believed to have been killed fighting the Kiowa, may be recovered.

The Widow

Little Bit and his grandpa, from Texas, are passing through Dodge after buying a breeding bull. When they meet Silva, someone grandpa considers a "fooler", they have their hands full making it back with their stock and their lives.

Durham Bull

A group of women are going by wagon train to Colorado, lured by the promise of marrying rich miners, but Matt learns that the leader's actual plan for the women is quite different.

Wagon Girls

Johnny Cole kills a crooked card dealer in self defense, and then falls in love with the dealer's beautiful daughter, but she resists his advances and wants to seriously hurt him instead.

The Dealer

Loy has always felt he could do what he pleased. When he shoots one of his gang members in the back just for the reward, he takes the body into Dodge to Matt Dillon who isn't as ready as he thought to give him his bounty.

The Summons

Henry and Jake have struck it rich. Now they want to follow their dream and buy a Mississippi river boat. When Henry spots Miss Kitty, he fancies marrying her but she will have nothing to do with his dream or him.

The Dreamers

Cale is a bullheaded young drifter who takes a nap in a barn he comes across only to wake up to a shootout between a horse thief and the owner. Cale is shot, wounded, and becomes a suspected accomplice.

Cale

On his way to a fishing vacation, Chester stumbles into a human drama when he wounds a fleeing Indian he mistakes for a thief, who has touched the heart of a lonely young white woman.

Chester's Indian

A charmer escapes from federal prison to Dodge and finds himself caught up in the drama among two brothers, the wife of one of them, and their domineering father.

The Prisoner

The market for snake oil is on the decline, so a peddler and his sons expand their con game with murder.

The Boys

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.

Half Straight

Seasons20

Season 7 Episodes34

Cast4

Crew2

Discussion

Episode Summary