Over twenty seasons, several lame stories about homeless bum families living in their wagons were done. Often they were grifters and killers. Occasionally they were just families where the Husband was a lazy drunk who only provided to his family what food they could steal from town to town.
In this version, the lazy father, played by Malcolm Atterbury, tries to give away his daughter to Matt Dillon. Naturally, Dillon says no, but the teenage girl is smitten by Matt Dillon, who is like a god compared to her piece of trash father.
On many occasions, Dillon has encountered a young lady who was in dire straits due to any number of reasons. It always seemed to me that if Miss Kitty had a lot of money, and Doc Adams was always talking about helping people, that they could have been more active to help the disadvantaged as part of the theme of Gunsmoke.
An orphanage and a vocational school was within the means of Miss Kitty. Doc Adams could have had a hand in running it. Instead, these characters spent hundreds of scenes of them sitting at the bar gossiping. A Western where the wealthy members of the community tried to help the folks that got dealt a bad hand would have been nice to see.
It was tragic to return a young girl (Lauri Peters) who had just been assaulted, to the lazy bum father and lowlife brother where she came from. The Gunsmoke gang could have done better, and it is too bad that the writers never thought of that.
In this version, the lazy father, played by Malcolm Atterbury, tries to give away his daughter to Matt Dillon. Naturally, Dillon says no, but the teenage girl is smitten by Matt Dillon, who is like a god compared to her piece of trash father.
On many occasions, Dillon has encountered a young lady who was in dire straits due to any number of reasons. It always seemed to me that if Miss Kitty had a lot of money, and Doc Adams was always talking about helping people, that they could have been more active to help the disadvantaged as part of the theme of Gunsmoke.
An orphanage and a vocational school was within the means of Miss Kitty. Doc Adams could have had a hand in running it. Instead, these characters spent hundreds of scenes of them sitting at the bar gossiping. A Western where the wealthy members of the community tried to help the folks that got dealt a bad hand would have been nice to see.
It was tragic to return a young girl (Lauri Peters) who had just been assaulted, to the lazy bum father and lowlife brother where she came from. The Gunsmoke gang could have done better, and it is too bad that the writers never thought of that.