Matt Dillon has been riding the TV range for 35 years, a record no other TV lawman can approach. He returns this Sunday to remind us his enduring appeal is not just a fluke.
Dillon's latest adventure - Gunsmoke: The Last Apache - is not only a rip-roaring frontier story with an extra dose of heart appeal, but also brings us a new and even more interesting look at the man called Dillon.The CBS movie premieres Sunday night at 8 on Ch. 5. It's a gem - and you don't need to be a die-hard "Gunsmoke" fan to know it, either.
In the second "Gunsmoke" movie since the long-running weekly series ended in 1975, we find Dillon alone and wandering, a legend-in-the-making. Most of his old friends are now dead and buried, so he drifts, his memories for company. No longer a U.S. marshal, he rides toward the twilight, known far and wide as "the man who put the lid on Dodge City."
Tired and dusty, he rides into a small frontier settlement, looking for an old pal, and steps into the middle of a holdup. That, of course, is bad news for the holdup men. Dillon is old and battered, but he's still as tough as leather and considerably meaner than he used to be wearing a badge.
This new Matt Dillon is irresistible. Like the TV legend who still plays him - big James Arness - this Dillon has seen it all pass by. He wastes even fewer words than before and suffers fools even less gladly. After all, time is precious and he still has trails to ride.
This time one of those trails leads into the past. After the bloody shoot-out in that little town, Dillon reads a letter that's been waiting for him there for months. It's from a woman named Mike (Michael Learned) whom he hasn't seen in 22 years. She needs to see him. Soon.
"If he's alive and if the letter reaches him, he'll come," Mike tells a friend. She knows this Matt Dillon, all right.
But when Dillon finally reaches her ranch, he finds the hands dead, the house in flames and Mike hiding out, near hysteria. The Apaches who attacked them are sure to intercept her daughter, who's riding home alone.
Then comes the bombshell: Her daughter, Beth (Amy Stock-Poynton), is also Dillon's daughter, the result of a romance 22 years before.
By now, it must be obvious this is no ordinary "Gunsmoke" episode. This is a turning point in the life of Matt Dillon that will leave him forever changed. He has lost one "family" - Miss Kitty, Doc Adams and the rest - only to learn he has real "family" he never knew existed.
For most of his life, Dillon has given his loyalty to friends, his responsibility to his job. Now he can no longer detach himself from the rest of life. He has a daughter - and he must find her.
It won't be easy. The feisty Beth has been taken prisoner by Wolf (Joe Lara), a half-breed Apache chief under Geronimo, whose tribe is now poised for a great climactic battle against the white soldiers, led by the racist martinet, Gen. Miles (Hugh O'Brian), who intends to ship the Apaches off on railroad cars to Florida.
What follows is a rousing adventure built around Geronimo's last stand. Gen. Miles rejects Dillon's plea for help, so he must try to rescue Beth with the help of just one other brave old man, a crusty ex-cavalry scout named Chalk Brighton (Richard Kiley), who wants to marry Beth's mom.
Arness, as the older, cagier Dillon, is better than he has ever been. They just don't make 'em like Arness anymore. When he grabs a fistful of O'Brian's tunic and slams him up against a wall, you just know John Wayne is looking down and smiling on his former protege. (Wayne was CBS's first choice to play Dillon when the series began in 1955. The Duke didn't want to do a TV series, so he suggested friend Arness for the part. Wayne appeared in the first "Gunsmoke" to introduce Arness as Dillon.)
The other players all are equally good, especially Kiley, the Tony and Emmy winner. He's a real surprise as the bearded, tobacco-chawing scout, a truly offbeat role for him.
Earl Wallace's screenplay is inventive but honors the "Gunsmoke" tradition. It turns a new corner for the Dillon character that CBS could follow in subsequent films.
This story also makes excellent use of the show's long history. Dillon did meet a woman named Mike on "Gunsmoke" 22 years ago and fell in love with her while recovering from a head wound that fogged his memory. She also was played by Learned, now a four-time Emmy winner and still one of America's most distinguished actors. (We see both Arness and Learned in a flashback from the original episode.)
It's also conceivable Dillon did father a daughter during that interlude. It's likely she'd turn out to be a tough, resourceful, handsome young woman like Beth. ("I'm not too handy with words," Dillon tells her in one of the film's most poignant moments, "but if the Lord asked me what kind of daughter I wanted, I'd sure know what to tell him.")
Filmed on authentic Texas locations, "The Last Apache" is no quickie "reunion" show for fans of an old TV series. Instead, it's a bold journey into what may be a new frontier for a legendary TV character.