O Massacre dos Pistoleiros

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.

At the very least, the Western drama 'Doc' manages to be somewhat interesting from start to finish, if not exactly factual. It tells the very familiar story of Marshal Wyatt Earp and John "Doc" Holiday in revisionist terms, and takes a very gritty, moody, psychological approach to the material, courtesy screenwriter Pete Hamill. It traces the journey of Doc (Stacy Keach) as he makes the acquaintance of prostitute Katie Elder (a de-glamorized Faye Dunaway) and rides into Tombstone to hook up with his old friend Wyatt (Harris Yulin), and to deal with the problem of such trouble making characters as Ike Clanton (Michael Witney).

Keach is the main reason to catch this film. Deliberately paced by cult filmmaker Frank Perry (best known for the 1981 camp classic "Mommie Dearest"), who produced and directed, it attempts to be as un-Hollywood as possible, and show darker aspects to these real life people, especially Earp, played as an opportunist. Perry's film begins on a very atmospheric note, as Doc arrives at an isolated inn / saloon during a windstorm. Ways in which the script humanizes Doc are how it charts his unusual courtship of Ms. Elder (appealingly portrayed by Dunaway) and his relationship with the well meaning "Kid" (Denver John Collins), who is the nephew of the Clanton brothers.

Keachs' engaging, melancholy performance is something to see. Veteran character actor Yulin is also quite good, in a rare above the title role for him. The supporting cast is comprised of less well known but still solid character players like John Scanlon, Richard McKenzie, Penelope Allen, Antonia Rey, Marshall Efron, and Bruce M. Fischer. That's writer Dan Greenburg as Clum the journalist, who in this fictionalization is decidedly anti-Earp.

It might be worth considering pairing this film with another gritty Western from the same time period, "Dirty Little Billy", which similarly took an offbeat approach to telling a familiar real life tale (in that case, that of Billy the Kid).

Seven out of 10.

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.

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.

Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday did go to Tombstone to get rich, but this film badly represents the "truth". This is typical of the time (Vietnam era) where law enforcement,traditions, and America were questioned and debunked whenever possible. Liberalism at it's finest.

This film may have been thought-provoking (although inaccurate) for it's time, but we've grown up from those days, as we did from the overly-romaticized days that produced "My Darling Clementine" and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Those films were polar opposites of this one, and both were inaccurate. The best film of the Vietnam era on this subject was "Hour of the Gun" made 4 years prior to this one.Add that to "Tombstone" and Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp" as perhaps the most close to accurate on this subject as Hollywood will come.