Gunsmoke
The Thieves
TV Flash files “The Thieves” as hour 513 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 15, episode 24, aired 1970-03-09, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S15E24: listed hour 513 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 24 of 26 in season 15. It aired 1970-03-09 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Morgan” (S15E23). Next is “Hackett” (S15E25). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Long Branch bartender Sam Noonan reveals a good bit about his young life while talking to a young man on probation for theft. The thieves, all teenagers, have been given a 'work release': two of them work on a farm and the third for the Long Branch Saloon as Sam's helper. They chafe under the heavy-handed supervision of a small-time lawman who watches over them and takes every opportunity to make their lives miserable. Sam, himself an ex-con from way back, helps out the kid as a sort of payback to a mentor who helped him when he got into trouble. One of the other two, a mentally challenged young man who just goes along with his partners, may also rehabilitate himself if treated properly. The third one, though, finds more and more ways to get into trouble for himself and his partners.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Thieves sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S15E24 is listed hour 513 of 635 — hour 24 of 26 in season 15, season 15 episode 24.
When did Gunsmoke S15E24 air?
The Thieves aired 1970-03-09 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
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- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
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- 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…