Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is director John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape) version of the oft-filmed eponymous gunfight. As far as historical accuracy goes, it's a fairly liberal and loose interpretation of the famous events involving sheriff Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clantons, and features a very Hollywood all-star cast seemingly having a ball embodying America's hallowed western mythos.

This is a film essentially about two men - the very straight and heroic Wyatt Earp (Burt Lanaster), and the somewhat more dubious rogue dentist, Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas). Doc Holliday is introduced to us as a drunken, bad tempered cad... idly flicking knives into the back of his bedroom door, provoking his whore girlfriend and polishing off a bottle of whiskey. Wyatt on the other hand is shown as an honest, intelligent man struggling to bring law to the wild west... he's as straight as they come and is slowly working on a personal vendetta with the villainous Clanton family. The paths of these two men cross several times throughout the frontier towns of the west (Wyatt cleaning them up, Holliday finding less savoury opportunities as a hardcore gambler) and they come to form an unlikely friendship neccessitated by their situations. A sense of honour develops between them despite their very large differences in character, and when Wyatt is finally pushed too far by the Clantons the two will come to fight shoulder to shoulder.

This is a colourful if uninspired western. The cast is filled out with familiar faces, including both stars of the era (Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland, Jack Elam) and up-and-coming actors (look closely for Dennis Hopper, DeForest Kelly and Lee Van Cleef in some early supporting turns). Kirk Douglas' presence and charisma is perfectly suited to the role of Doc Holliday, and he wisely doesn't push it too much - at one point when Wyatt asks him where his gear is, Holliday simply pulls a deck of cards out of his jacket pocket. Lancaster on the other hand puts little fire into his performance, which was a bit of a disappointment for me as I'm a bit of a Lancaster fan, and his scenes in the film aren't anywhere near as interesting as they should be.

This was an okay film. I've certainly seen better westerns and Sturges' direction here verges on workman-like at times. The initial scenes introducing us to the characters, and the full-scale introduction of the Clantons crashing a party (where they come on like a proto-biker gang, running amok and causing a delirious ruckus) are fun and exciting, but a lot of the scenes in between feel a bit too plodding. Most annoyingly, the film doesn't even get to Tombstone until the last 45 minutes, and it doesn't start building up to the actual gunfight until the last twenty minutes. This wouldn't be so bad if the film was called The Adventures of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday or something like that, but as it's called Gunfight at O.K. Corral I kind of thought it would focus on this event a little more. Anyway, like I said, it's not a bad film but I'm sure there are better films about the infamous showdown at Tombstone that you could watch instead.

TRIVIA: At one point Doc Holliay calls his whore-girlfriend a 'slut'... it isn't the earliest example of this word's usage in mainstream film (the 1940s gangster film Brighton Rock uses it to memorable effect) but it still sounds quite shocking in an overall fairly traditional film.

DIRECTOR: John Sturges
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Leon Uris, based on an article by George Scullin (which in turn was based on real life events from the 1880s).
KEY ACTORS: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland, Dennis Hopper, Martin Milner, DeForest Kelley, Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef.

RELATED TEXTS:
- John Sturges followed this up with a sequel, The Hour of the Gun, about the further exploits of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday... it starred James Garner as Wyatt, Jason Robards as Holliday, and Robert Ryan as Ike Clanton.
- Other film versions of the infamous gunfight at Tombstone include Tombstone the Town Too Tough to Die, My Darling Clementine, Frontier Marshal, Wyatt Earp and Tombstone. It was also featured in the 1960s Doctor Who serial, The Gunfighters.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated Best Film Editing and Best Sound.