'Gunsmoke's James Arness Played a Different Kind of Western Character in 'How the West Was Won's Soapy Remake

After playing Marshal Matt Dillon for two decades on the hit CBS Western Gunsmoke, James Arness was suddenly without a job when the network axed the series without warning after 20 seasons. But did that stop the Western star from working? Of course not. Arness wouldn’t be kept down, and by the next January, he had already hit the open trail and pivoted from CBS to ABC for the network’s television adaptation of the classic How the West Was Won. It may have been a breathtaking feature film, but it was also a stellar long-form series — even if it did have its faults.

James Arness' 'How the West Was Won' Western Series Didn't Match the Movie's Star Power

The televised version of How the West Was Won didn't follow the Rawlings family as the original 1962 film did. Indeed, it didn't even feature an array of big-name feature film directors and gigantic movie stars to pull it along (the original was helmed by a combination of John Ford, Henry Hathaway, and George Marshall and featured the likes of James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, and even John Wayne). But one thing that ABC's attempt at the familiar tale did have was television's biggest and longest-running Western hero. As mountain man and U.S. Army scout Zebulon “Zeb” Macahan, Arness led the rest of the Macahan family across the open plains as they fled the conflict of the Civil War and looked West. But in his efforts to protect his kin, the Macahans find plenty of trouble along the way.

The series began initially with a two-hour television film to kickstart the drama (titled The Macahans) before ABC saw the potential and followed up the movie-length pilot with a three-part miniseries consisting of 90-minute installments the following year. Several on-screen changes were made to the Macahans in that time, the biggest of which was that Zeb's two nephews, Bruce Boxleitner's Seth and William Kirby Cullen's Jed, were renamed from then on as Luke and Josh Macahan, respectively. The reason for the change is a bit ambiguous, but the characters themselves (and their backstory) remained firmly intact. It must've been a situation of liking how Luke and Josh sounded better than Seth and Jed.

In any event, the miniseries (which has since been considered the first season) was a hit and ABC brought How the West Was Won back the following year in the form of a full-on series. Almost as a precursor to the streaming model, each season was shortened compared to network standards at the time (Season 2 consisted of 14 episodes, while Season 3 had 11), but the individual episodes remained fixed at an hour to 90-minutes in length. According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows: 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, the project was filmed across several states across the American West (the scale alone is commendable), and so How the West Was Won lived up to its name on visuals alone. It was clear that ABC didn't want audiences to miss out on this horse opera, especially in the late '70s post-Western age of television.

'How the West Was Won' Is More of a Soapy Western Series, but Still Depicts the Old West's Brutalities

As a series, How the West Was Won was a bit soapier than its big screen counterpart. It leaned heavily into interpersonal drama, misunderstandings as conflict, and even romantic subplots that typically amounted to nothing. From their exodus in Virginia to their initial wintering in Nebraska to their eventual home beneath the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, the Macahans fought tooth and nail for everything they had, often finding tragedy along the way. Still, Arness was a permanent fixture on the series, and it was clear from the beginning that he aimed to make Zeb Macahan as different from Marshal Matt Dillon as possible. For one thing, Zeb was a lot more rough around the edges. Always wearing his frontier gear, sporting a mustache, and willing to pick a fight, Zeb may have been helping his family to settle the West, but he was never quite a settler himself.

Of course, although How the West Was Won often utilized soap-style plots, part of what set the series apart is the way that it portrayed the gruesome nature of the West. In the pilot film, Zeb's brother, Tim Macahan (Richard Kiley), leaves his family and returns to the Civil War battlefield, where he dies in combat. Likewise, after settling in Wyoming, Tim's wife, Kate Macahan (Eva Marie Saint), is killed between seasons, leaving her aforementioned sons and her daughters, Laura (Kathryn Holcomb) and Jessie (Vicki Schreck), alone to fend for themselves. This introduces Kate's Chicago-based sister, Molly Culhane (Fionnula Flanagan), to the show for the remainder of its run, serving almost as a stand-in for the modern audience who cannot fully comprehend all the heartbreak, tragedy, and overall hardship that those who settled the West endured.

How the West Was Won has often been forgotten in favor of its 1962 counterpart, but it's certainly worth revisiting for its own merits. With fascinating plots that depict typically ignored truths about the Old West and a likable cast of characters in the Macahan family, it's a Western gem that ought to be remembered. At the very least, it was a thoughtful and thrilling follow-up to Gunsmoke for James Arness, who was given more to do here than he had been as Dillon for years.