Gunsmoke
Time of the Jackals
TV Flash files “Time of the Jackals” as hour 479 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 14, episode 16, aired 1969-01-13, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S14E16: listed hour 479 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 16 of 26 in season 14. It aired 1969-01-13 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The Twisted Heritage” (S14E15). Next is “Mannon” (S14E17). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Matt and Festus shoot it out with an outlaw who was a member of the infamous Jess Trevor gang, particularly notorious for murder and mayhem. Matt finally kicks in the outlaw's door and shoots him. The outlaw lives for a few minutes, and Matt asks him why he deserted the Trevor gang. The dying outlaw reveals that he left at the request of Trevor's girlfriend, who was also shocked by his cruelty and wishes to leave. The woman is then shown lying in a corner, having accidentally been shot by Matt. To his horror, Matt recognizes the woman as Leona, a woman he knew and loved before he came to Dodge City. Guilt-ridden, he brings Leona back to Dodge and learns her story: she had drifted after leaving Matt, turning to prostitution and hooking up with various gang members, closing with Trevor himself. Trevor has learned of Leona's defection and puts out a murder contract on her. While Matt searches for Trevor (and Trevor orders a hit on Matt), Kitty (who is nursing Leona) struggles with her feelings toward her boyfriend's past girlfriend, finally making an uneasy alliance with Leona. When Matt gets to Trevor first and takes him in, Trevor warns "there will be twenty shotguns pointed at your head" when Matt sends Trevor off to court for trial. Matt warns Trevor that "there's going to be one aimed at yours" in return. The extradition trip to the train station begins in an atmosphere of the highest tension, as Leona watches from a sidewalk.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Time of the Jackals sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S14E16 is listed hour 479 of 635 — hour 16 of 26 in season 14, season 14 episode 16.
When did Gunsmoke S14E16 air?
Time of the Jackals aired 1969-01-13 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the 1955 opener, where the marshal is not invincible. Then sample a later guest-star hour rather than marching through hundreds of titles in order.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twenty seasons of Dodge as a civic appointment: a marshal who can lose, a chorus instead of gadgets, and adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Longevity here was weather, not catalog padding — weekly public work with dust still on the boots.
September 1955, CBS: a marshal takes a bullet in the first hour and the adult western stops being a kid’s hat commercial. Gunsmoke had already lived on radio, with a different voice in the badge. Television wanted a face the lens could trust. The lore still pours like bar whiskey — John Wayne pointing at James Arness, William Conrad left on the airwaves, a casting fight that was really a medium fight. Radio-to-TV is never a reprint. It is a negotiation about whose body gets to mean the law.
Filed against
- James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon
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- Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell
Amanda Blake’s Miss Kitty Russell ran Dodge City’s Long Branch with red-haired steel on Gunsmoke — saloon diplomacy as weekly moral court. Longevity made her western TV’s most reliable soft power. TV Flash files her as the original…
- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
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- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
Dennis Weaver’s Chester Goode was Gunsmoke’s limp and loyalty — chorus, not gadget, in Dodge City’s weekly moral court. Twenty seasons of adult western that treated a gunfight as a verdict, James Arness as a marshal the camera could…
- Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen
Ken Curtis’s Festus Haggen is Gunsmoke’s later chorus — Dodge City as a weekly moral court, a marshal who can lose, adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Twenty seasons of civic work with dust on the boots. On TV Flash…