Bloody Hands: Gunsmoke (April 2, 1955)

“Bloody Hands” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast April 2, 1955. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Marshal Matt Dillon pursues the outlaw Jack Brand and his three-man gang into Kansas. After a tense confrontation at a cabin, Dillon returns to Dodge City with Brand in custody and the bodies of the three gang members, but the circumstances of the killing trouble those around him.

Dodge City, Kansas and surrounding territory in 1955

Characters: Matt Dillon, Chester, Doc, Jack Brand

Listen for: The moral complexity of frontier justice as Doc and Chester question whether Dillon's use of force was necessary, and Dillon's own troubled conscience after the violent encounter.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.