Gunfight at the OK Corral

John Sturges's take on the Wyatt Earp-Doc Holliday story is a fun old-fashioned Western. Simple in its storytelling and morality, it's a pure piece of Hollywood myth.

Marshall Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) and gunslinger Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas) have a run-in at Fort Griffith, Texas, where Earp saves Holliday from a lynch mob after he kills a rival (Lee Van Cleef). Doc shows up in Dodge City, and eventually joins Wyatt as a somewhat-reluctant deputy, locking horns with slimy gunfighter Johnny Ringo (John Ireland), who tries to steal Doc's girl (Jo Van Fleet) for good measure. Wyatt eventually leaves for Tombstone, Arizona, where his brothers Virgil and Morgan (John Hudson and DeForrest Kelly) are already set up as Marshalls. When Earp and Holiday find that Ringo is in town, allied with crooked rancher Ike Clanton (Lyle Bettger), the stage is set for an epic gunfight.

Gunfight at the OK Corral is about as conventional as a Western can be: the good guys are really good, the bad guys really bad, everything easily defined and coded, the costumes and scenery polished and pretty. Wyatt may tell juvenile delinquent Billy Clanton (Dennis Hopper) that being a gunfighter is tough, but that doesn't square with the cool, stylish heroes we get in Wyatt and Doc. The titular showdown is shorn of the messy background and escalating Earp-Clanton confrontations: it's a cold-blooded Cowboy murder that drives the Earps to righteous vengeance. If it lacks the artistry of John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), it succeeds on its own simple terms.

Some pacing or dramatic economy could have helped a bit. The first hour takes place in Dodge City, making the title something of a misnomer, and is just lengthy scene-setting and character development. Both Wyatt and Doc engage in ill-fated romances that significantly bog down the plot. When we finally do arrive in Tombstone, things feel a bit rushed. Earp's brothers are virtually bit characters, and the conflict with the Cowboys isn't really developed: the Earps show up and demand the Clantons leave town, and there's an end to it.

Sturges's skills in action and male bonding serve the film very well. Charles Lang's Vistavision photography is striking, making the most of beautiful location work and giving the film an epic scope. The final gunfight is exciting and well-staged, with the heroes' use of strategy making it a cut above the usual blast-'em-to-pieces fare. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is good but Frankie Laine's hectoring title ballad is repeated twice too often.

Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster make a great pair of leads, playing off each other marvellously. The Wyatt-Doc dynamic dominates the film and having these frequent co-stars in the role goes a long way towards making them work. John Ireland is promoted from second-tier baddie in My Darling Clementine to principal villain. Jo Van Fleet is good but Rhonda Flemming has zero chemistry with Lancaster. Dennis Hopper has a bit more to do than in most of his Westerns, making Billy an almost-sympathetic kid. Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam put in their requisite appearances.

Gunfight at the OK Corral is far from the best take on Wyatt Earp and his war with the Cowboys, but it's hard to criticize it on its own terms. It sets out to tell a simple story in an exciting fashion, and the end result is hard to argue with.