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One of Hollywood's major offerings of 1957, "Gunfight" contains all the ingredients one would expect of a blockbuster - big stars, big budget and a storyline calculated to capture the public's imagination. For me, however, the film doesn't quite work. In the final analysis, the whole thing is a little too sluggish, a little too formulaic.

To be sure, it contains fine things. Burt Lancaster is stolid and unyielding as hard lawman Wyatt Earp. Sturges films him with the camera at ground level as he rides onto the screen, making him seem superhuman in his larger-than-life moral certainty. He faces down the armed drunk without the faintest twitch of fear, the embodiment of a strong, righteous enforcer of the law. The friendship between the paragon and the wastrel is cleverly done, with Earp and Holliday (Kirk Douglas) each seeing something to admire in the other, very different, man. Character is also to the fore as a plot-driver when Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet) is forced by the dynamics of her relationship with the Doc into ever more wretched behaviour. By comparison, the Earp-Laura love story is cold and staid. Both Lancaster and Rhonda Fleming are terrific to look at, but hard to warm to. Though the film takes an eternity to get to the shoot-out which is its raison d'etre, when the climax finally comes the suspense is built superbly. In a nice symmetry, we see the women of both sides dreading the fatal clash as Ma Clanton and Virgil's wife separately mourn the departure of their respective menfolk. Douglas made a career out of playing generous-spirited bad guys, and one of the best things in this film is Doc Holliday's heroic effort of will, rising from his sickbed to stand beside his friend in the face of mortal danger. Shot in a rich Technicolor palette, the film's images are strong and clean, and at times even beautiful, for example the barn fire, or the approach of the Earp faction, with Cotton standing facing them, his body framed by the corral building.

Other elements are not so well done. Wyatt is too unrelenting a hard man to win the audience's unqualified sympathy, as in the scene when he tells the all-too-human Cotton, "If you can't handle it any more, turn in your badge." The Frankie Laine ballad, almost de rigeur in 1950's westerns, is simply not up to scratch ("Boot Hill, Boot Hill, so cold, so still ...") There is an ugly shadow eclipsing Ike Clanton's face throughout his most important scene. Billy (a very young Dennis Hopper) is 'converted' by Wyatt far too easily.

There exists a wide spectrum of opinion on the question of how loyal a work of fiction should remain to the historical event which inspired it. One camp would argue that the artist has total freedom to rework a popular legend such as The Gunfight, while the other extremity would insist on documentary accuracy. This film is interesting, in that it takes a well-known incident for which contemporaneous records abound, and virtually disregards the historical truth.

In the film, the decent, clean-shaven Earp boys are merely 'doing what a man has to do'. We know that the Clanton-McLaury gang is mean and duplicitous, and that there will have to be a showdown between Right and Wrong. The shoot-out, when it comes, happens over several minutes of time on a clear, bright day. There is an athletic battle of movement, with the Earps in particular manoeuvring for position, and finally trapping the Clantons in and around a burning wagon. The strategic intentions of the good guys are clear and easy to follow.

The reality of October 26, 1881 was quite different. Two gangs of walrus-mustachioed men confronted each other, standing face-to-face in a built-up street. The shooting lasted a maximum of 30 seconds, and when the smoke cleared, three of the so-called "cowboy faction" lay dead or mortally wounded, whereas the Earp faction sustained only minor wounds. Wyatt was totally unharmed. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne, two of the cowboy leaders, had in fact run away when the guns opened fire.

This was no tussle between Good and Evil. Wyatt Earp was not a US Marshall, as the film tries to insist. He was Virgil's assistant with purely local authority, little more than his brother's pinch-hitter. Doc Holliday held no office of any kind. This was a clash between two Americas - the Earps representing the urban, northern, republican culture which had won the Civil War, while the Clantons stood for the freebooting, democratic, open-range mentality whose sympathies lay with the vanquished South.

A motion picture has a span of something like 90 minutes in which to set out its stall. Perhaps such a narrow intellectual space imposes so many constrictions that the true flavour of a historic event can never be properly represented. Or maybe the limitations of the medium set the film-maker free to create a better, more poetic "reality". I don't know the answer. There probably isn't one.

In one of her books Hedda Hopper devoted a chapter to both of the stars of Gunfight at the OK Corral, calling them the Terrible Twins. As a columnist Hopper was a firm defender of the old studio system and both Burt and Kirk were seen by her as betraying old Hollywood.

Now personally I think their careers show that both of these guys knew exactly what they were doing in guiding their own destinies. This film is a great example of it. It was deservedly a critical hit and a moneymaker.

No film has ever been made that completely told accurately the story of the famous gunfight, least of all this one. But it sure captures the spirit.

I think both of these guys could have played each other's part and the film still would have been a winner. The problem with playing Wyatt Earp is that he's usually such a straight arrow on screen or on television that the main job of the actor is to keep from making him sound like Dudley Doo-Right. Burt Lancaster is capable enough and did it, but Wyatt Earp maybe one of the least complex roles he ever essayed.

Kirk Douglas though is the best Doc Holiday I've ever seen portrayed. Doc Holiday is a brooding, consumptive alcoholic who's also a woman batterer. He treats Jo Van Fleet like garbage and her responses to him is responsible for several of the plot twists. As I've said before Douglas can flip into rage better than any other actor ever. Just watch him with Van Fleet after the youngest Earp brother has been killed.

Today we would call Jo Van Fleet a battered spouse even though she and Douglas are living common-law. Her's is the next best portrayal in the film besides Kirk Douglas.

Rhonda Fleming has little to do except look coquettish and beautiful as the lady gambler who Lancaster falls for. But that was usually enough for her public. It's ironic that she's playing a liberated woman for 19th century and Fleming's politics are quite right wing and Lancaster her very traditional 19th century man was a noted political liberal.

And of course the unbilled co-star is Frankie Laine singing that wonderful title song by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington. Tiomkin was one of the best of movie composers, his music gave that extra oomph into a lot of good movies, making them great.

This trigger-taut Western drama deals with a lawman and a badman , the strangest friendship this side of heaven and hell . They fought shoulder to shoulder in the wildest stand-up gunfight in the history of the West . They are the strangest alliance between the West's most famous sheriff Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) , trying to overcome outlaws and its deadliest gambling killer , Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas). It's incomparably performed by the greatest team who ever went into action , Lancaster portrays the large-than-life lawman , living by the old rules , driven by revenge , dueling to the death and Douglas is most impressive as a gunslinger , the hellfire gambler , his only friends were his guns and his only refuge was a woman's heart . Two towering Box office actors in a huge exciting production . The film correctly builds up its suspense until a tense battle in streets of Tombstone.

The flick is formed by three parts and divided by three songs played by Frankie Lane and musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin . The first is located in Fort Griffin where Earp finds Holliday and helps him against Ed Bailey (Lee Van Cleef). The second part concerns on Holliday and his mate Kate (Jo Van Fleet) and appears a gambling-woman , the red-haired named Laura (Rhonda Fleming) . Here Doc helps Earp against another historic characters , such as Shangai Pierce (Ted De Corsia) and Johnny Ringo (John Ireland), furthermore is the sheriff Ben Masterson (Kenneth Tobey) . The third part focuses Tombstone , 1881 , with stimulating scenes about OK Corral gunfight between Morgan (DeForest Kelley) , Virgil (John Howard), Wyatt Earp , Doc against the nefarious Ike (Lyle Bettgler), Billy Clanton (Dennis Hooper) , Johnny Ringo, and Tom McLowery(Jack Elam). The main character is a historical figure , in this case the sheriff Wyatt Earp who participated the most famous duel occurred in the western town of Tombstone in 1881 that has been brought to the big screen many times as in the classic "My Darling Clementine" in 1946 directed by John Ford with Henry Fonda and Victor Mature , in this "Gunfight at O.K. Corral" (1957) by specialist John Sturges who would resume the same story in "The Hour of the Gun" (1967) ; the demystifying "Doc" (Frank Perry, 1971) with Harris Yulin and Stacy Keach or the more modern "Tombstone: The Legend of Wyatt Earp" (George P. Cosmatos, 1993) with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer and ¨Wyatt Earp¨ (Lawrence Kasdan, 1994) with Kevin Costner and Dennis Quaid . The motion picture was stunningly directed by John Sturges

This is a story enormous in scope ,unusual in concept with a mile-a-minute action on a climatic and thrill-a-minute gunfight. Packs a magnificent cinematography-Vistavision and Technicolor with overblown chromatic by Charles B Lang and outdoors shot in Fort Griffith , Tucson, Phoenix and Tombstone . This thrilling film contains a spectacular and lyric musical score by the great Dimitri Tiomkin . John Sturges's masterpiece of the West in one of the top films of the 1957 year . Followed by a sequel ¨Hour of the gun (1967)¨ also directed by specialist Sturges with James Garner and Jason Robards .

Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957)

This has the makings of a classic, and of course the story is one of the great ture legends of the Wild West. Burt Lancaster as the tough and unbending lawman and Kirk Douglas as the unpredictable semi-lawless cad are both great, and the best scenes are probably those with the two of them. The rest of the cast is reasonable, some of them really good, though maybe the all important bad guys lacked some kind of wild evil they might have needed (a Lee Marvin intensity). One of the bad guys, Johnny Ringo, is played by a nice guy actor, John Ireland, even though Ringo was never part of thie OK Corral story. It does have a young Dennis Hopper, which is fun to see (and Hopper hailed from Dodge City itself in real life).

Still, it looked like it would really be equivalent to "Rio Bravo" and others from the same time period.

Not so, not for me. And it's simply because of that whole range of different things that add up in a great movie and slip and slither in a decent one. For example, there are a number of interludes with horses walking through the big landscape and the corny theme song is sung through a new verse. I can't believe this was effective even at the time (music from 1957 in general wasn't so corny and fakey, including country music), but now it deadened the flow. Likewise the series of events didn't always seem to lead one to the next in a compelling way, as the interludes allowed a shift in location and sometimes a whole new situation to develop.

One problem (if this is a problem) is that it's based on facts. I think this made the movie makers add information and keep switching towns simply because it was the way it was and they thought they must. Maybe they did. Oddly, they got lots of the essentials wrong that might actually make a better movie if someone wants to take another crack at it (quick details at wikipedia). The final famous shootout is fun and well done but way too obvious with the good guys always getting their target and the bad guys missing, or hitting a leg.

So why the reputation? It isn't bad, and it is always compelling to see Douglas in particular in almost any film. The filming (by Charles Lang, one of the greats) is first rate, and so just watching, whatever the scene, is enjoyable.

Been several years since I've seen this 1957 flick. Since that time I've seen Tombstone & Hour of the Gun. I've enjoyed both these subsequent interpretations of the Clanton-Earp feud . A toss-up between screen legend Kirk Douglas and Val Kilmer. Mustache event clearly goes to Kurt Russell and James Garner over Burt Lancaster. Lancaster plays it straight to the hilt and that's fine. The more interesting role is Doc Holiday who would have been a godsend to dentistry if he could have taken care of his cough. His lady friend ("you slut") looks like she has seen better days and the nod goes to Kilmer's gal -Kate played by Joanna Pacula. Kirk is great as always and proves a little cold water on the face is all you need (plus a few shots of courage) before a shootout. Johnny Ringo (John Ireland) has obviously lost his Cherry and crossed the Red River to Tombstone. Martin Milner (1 Adam 12), DeForest Kelly (Bones) and Dennis Hopper don't do to much but make you realize this movie almost 50 years old.

I recommend it because of the play between the two lead characters.