Gunsmoke
Women for Sale (1)
TV Flash files “Women for Sale (1)” as the first listed hour of season 19 — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 19, episode 1, aired 1973-09-10, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S19E01: listed hour 588 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, first listed hour of season 19. It aired 1973-09-10 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “This Golden Land” (S18E24). Next is “Women for Sale (2)” (S19E02). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Matt becomes involved in investigating the disappearance of female settlers and travelers in the region. He links it to a band of renegade Native Americans, who plan to sell the women as sex slaves to a band of ruthless white mercenaries.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Women for Sale (1) sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S19E01 is listed hour 588 of 635 — first listed hour of season 19, season 19 episode 1.
When did Gunsmoke S19E01 air?
Women for Sale (1) aired 1973-09-10 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
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- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
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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…