I remember a story I hear about when Gunsmoke was on radio with William Conrad as Marshall Dillon. Apparently, the on-stage profession of Miss Kitty was a bit more...obvious. They got into trouble in a saloon scene where someone went upstairs with someone, and some pretty obvious sound effects didn’t leave much to the imagination. Only heard the story, so looking for any confirmation...?
Yes, I’ve heard that the radio version of “Gunsmoke” was much darker and grittier. One of the writers, in an interview, was pretty clear about Kitty’s profession, in case anyone didn’t catch on. And Matt Dillon was a rather conflicted character, with a kind of shady past before he became a lawman, and didn’t always catch the bad guy in the end. Some of the radio shows are available on CD, and I’m going to order them.
If you watch the early, 30-minute episodes of Gunsmoke, there are some fairly obvious references to Miss Kitty’s bar (The Long Branch) as a brothel, as well as a watering hole. In some of the wider shots, you’ll see a man periodically head upstairs with one of the bar maids, and other couples coming back down the staircase.
In an interview, Jim Arness said the cast and writers were certain that network censors would demand removal of the inferences to prostitution, and the scenes reshot. Amazingly, the censors never said a word, and in some of those black-and-white episdoes, you can still see cowboys heading upstairs for a little recreation.
One more note: despite the “staircase” scenes, the TV version was somewhat tame compared to the radio series. On radio, Matt Dillion (William Conrad) was depicted as a lonely, isolated man and Doc Adams (Howard McNear) was an alcoholic and something of a quack. Georgia Ellis, who played Kitty, identified her character as a “prostitute, pure and simple.” The radio series was extremely well-done, although it was (ultimately) over-shadowed by the TV version.