Doc Holliday

Among the gritiest, dirtiest, noisiest westerns I've seen. As I write this in 2002 Doc holds up very well compared to recent films such as Tombstone and Wild Bill. Doc puts a different "spin" to the famous OK Corral story both in the telling of the tale and in exploring the multi-layered relationship of the characters to one another. Stacey, Faye and Harris are fabulous.

As a movie it is a semi-interesting curiosity. What I find amusing is the comments of some people have made here, to the effect that unlike the romantic fantasies of previous Wyatt Earp movies, this movie finally reveals the ugly truth behind the legends. I have been studying frontier history for about forty years and to anyone who thinks the events in DOC (even allowing for dramatic license) have any connection to historic fact, I say: Only on the Bizarro Planet, Cheech. As someone else wrote, all it does it replace positive lies with negative lies. I remember when the movie came out, the producer-director was plugging it on TV boasting of how much research had gone into this movie; likewise, in a preface to a paperback edition of his screenplay (which, as I recall, was even stupider than the actual movie), Pete Hamill wrote solemnly about how he--crackerjack journalist that he is--had seemingly unearthed the long-hidden truth about the Wild West in general and Wyatt Earp in particular. What twaddle. Hamill seems to have read one book about the Earps--Frank Waters' discredited Earp BROTHERS OF TOMBSTONE--and then pretty much relied on the time-honored journalistic tradition of Making Stuff Up. He didn't even really follow Waters very closely.

Ignoring the major historical inaccuracies (Virgil was the Marshal of Tombstone and not Wyatt; Doc and Katie Elder were together long before they both came to Tombstone; etc.), the film attempts to make Doc and Wyatt out as the mob bosses of the Tombstone. "Tombstone" (the Costner film) was much more historically accurate.

Stacy Keach is Doc Holliday in the umpteenth retelling of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Faye Dunaway is Big Nose Kate, the woman he runs into in a bordello and falls in love with. Harris Yukon is Wyatt Earp, various other people play various other people, and if there's a point to director Frank Perry's handling of Pete Hamill's script, it's that the Old West was a dirty place. Not figuratively, but literally so in need of a good cleaning that cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld shoots all the interiors with a sepia tint. Even Miss Dunaway's white wedding dress looks ivory,

It's not presented as a story, but more as a series of events that happen to some ill-defined people. Of course, in many stories, it's the actions which tell us the characters, but Kerch seems to be just going along with things. I suppose that's a character, and it seems likely that a man who has been dying for years of tuberculosis might adopt the attitude. Still, it gives the impression that any random character at these events could have been the subject. One of the horses, perhaps.

Stacy Keach and Faye Dunaway give Good Performances as "Doc" Holiday and Katie Elder, and is Central to, Yet Again, a Movie about those mostly Mythological Personalities, Wyatt Earp and "Doc", Climaxing, Yet Again, with The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

The Point in this one is to Demystify to a Degree about the Motivation and Moral Certitude of the often Predictable Personas of these "Shootist".

It's a Gloomy, Murky, Soft Spoken Style with most of the Acting done with the Eyes and a Whisper. Thought Provoking and it does Dusty Duty Covering things with a Haze of Grit. The Tense Atmosphere is Realistic and the Suspense Builds with much Philosophizing and Reflection.

The Film certainly has it Moments as well as its Detractors. It is more of an Intellectual Introspection of Famous/Infamous Men. Wild Men, who had to be to Survive, in the Wild West. Some of these Folks had Visions of Civilizing the Frontier. Witness Wyatt's (Henry Yulin) Speech after the Gunfight and "Doc's" Final Act of Violence.

Overall, Atypical Western in the Traditional Sense but Typical for its Time Period. Underrated and Worth a Watch.