Six-gun justice in Dillon’s Dodge City
After finding success on radio in the early 1950s, the western drama “Gunsmoke” in 1955 moseyed over to television, where it stayed on CBS for a groundbreaking 20 seasons.
Paramount Home Video is celebrating the legacy of the Emmy Award-winning series with the two-volume “50th Anniversary Edition” ($69 for both volumes; $37 each).
Tall, taciturn James Arness had appeared in such films as “The Farmer’s Daughter” and “The Thing” (he played the title role) when John Wayne recommended him for the lead role as the noble, upright lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, who every week tried to keep the peace in the frontier town of Dodge City. Amanda Blake played saloonkeeper Miss Kitty and Milburn Stone was “Doc”; Dennis Weaver was his deputy Chester, who limped and spoke in a high-pitch twang. After Weaver left the series in 1964 for his own show, Ken Curtis joined the cast as deputy Festus Haggen, and Buck Taylor followed three years later as gunsmith Newly O’Brien. Even Burt Reynolds put in a three-year stint on the series as the half-white, half-Indian Quint Asper.
The first volume features 17 black-and-white episodes from the initial nine seasons, including the premiere episode called “Matt Gets It,” complete with the original introduction to the series by Wayne, and Reynolds’ first episode, “Quint Asper Comes Home.” Other familiar faces that pop up in these episodes include a pre-”Dr. Kildare” Richard Chamberlain.
Arness offers an audio introduction to each episode and extra and provides nostalgic, no-nonsense commentary on the premiere episode. There’s also commentary by Weaver on “Hack Prine,” home movies by Weaver from the set, Arness and Weaver’s appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” bloopers, excerpts from Emmy Award telecasts, and footage from a 1989 Museum of TV & Radio seminar.
The second volume includes 12 episodes from the last nine seasons, along with more commentary form Arness, as well as Taylor on his first episode, “The Pillagers,” as well as guest stars Bruce Dern on “The Jailer” and Ed Asner on “Hung High.”
Other extras feature Blake’s appearances on “The Mike Douglas Show” and “The David Frost Show,” original network promos and photo galleries.
Also new this week
“Wedding Crashers -- Uncorked” (New Line, $29): The unrated version offers nearly nine additional minutes of the raucous comedy hit starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as two swinging bachelors who crash weddings to pick up women. The DVD includes four deleted scenes, including the two stars singing karaoke to “99 Red Balloons,” featurettes, wisecracking commentary with the two stars and commentary with director David Dobkin.
“Broken Flowers” (Universal, $30): Iconoclast writer-director Jim Jarmusch teams with Bill Murray for this offbeat comedy about a devout bachelor who receives an anonymous letter from an ex-lover informing him he has a 19-year-old son. Urged by his quirky neighbor (Jeffrey Wright), Murray travels across the country to visit four former girlfriends to see if any of them wrote the letter. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Though the extras are meager they are unique -- including a behind-the-scenes glimpse called “Start to Finish” and a phone interview with Jarmusch.
“Secuestro Express” (Miramax, $30): Jonathan Jakubowicz wrote and directed this Venezuelan thriller ripped from the headlines of Latin America, where kidnapping of the rich has become an everyday occurrence. In fact, during the production of the film in Caracas, six crew members had relatives kidnapped. The DVD includes a look at the making of the film, as well as the facts behind the kidnappings -- the Caracas ghetto where many of the country’s kidnappings take place is the second largest in the world. There is also English-language commentary with the filmmaker and Spanish-language commentary with the writer-director and several members of his cast.
“The Cave” (Sony, $29): Low-budget sci-fi thriller -- a combination of “Alien” and “Predator” -- set in an underwater cave network in the Romanian mountains. Cole Hauser, Morris Chestnut and Eddie Cibrian star. Extras include a look at the world of cave diving and underwater cinematographer and commentary with director Bruce Hunt and others.
“The Gospel” (Sony, $29): This updated retelling of the prodigal son stars Boris Kodjoe as a popular singer who turned his back on God after the death of his mother. After he learns his father is dying, he returns home to find his father’s congregation is in disarray. Extras on the DVD include extended musical scenes, a behind-the-scenes featurette and lively commentary from director Rob Hardy and producer Will Packer.
“Cartoon Adventures Starring Gerald McBoing Boing” (Sony, $15): Released by United Productions of America in 1951, “Gerald McBoing Boing” is a highly stylized, colorful animated Oscar-winning short about a little boy who didn’t speak -- but spouted off plenty of sound effects. The disc includes three other “Gerald” cartoons: 1953’s “Gerald McBoing Boing’s Symphony,” 1954’s “How Now Boing Boing,” and 1955’s “Gerald McBoing Boing on the Planet Moo,” which was nominated for an Oscar.
“Dumb and Dumber” (New Line, $20): This “unrated” edition of the 1994 comedy starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels includes a new retrospective documentary -- Daniels participates, Carrey doesn’t -- two alternate endings and nearly an hour of deleted or alternate scenes.
Upcoming
Jan. 10: “Hustle & Flow,” “The Constant Gardener,” “Red Eye,” “Transporter 2,” “Saraband,” “The Man,” “The Chumscrubber.”
Jan. 17: “Two for the Money,” “Lord of War,” “Junebug,” “Asylum,” “Underclassman,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.”
Jan. 24: “Flightplan,” “The Fog,” “Oliver Twist,” “Thumbsucker,” “The Aristocrats,” “My Big Fat Independent Movie.”
