Gunfight at the OK Corral

John Sturges, USA, 1957, 122 minutes

Hollywood has spawned many variations of the Earp-Holliday legend ranging from John Ford's My Darling Clementine (the best) to last year's Kurt Russell blockbuster Tombstone and even a Star Trek episode with Kirk, Spock, Bones and the gang in western garb. Obviously the showdown at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone on Oct. 26 1888 looms large in the American psyche.

Maybe its the coupla' good men against the forces of darkness or men doin' wot they gotta do or the ideals of friendship exuded by the story. More likely it's the guns and gratuitous violence that Americans delight in that explains the success of the story.

This version, though full of western clichés ("If I'm gonna die, let me die with the best friend I ever had") has the star power of Lancaster and Douglas to carry it through the dull patches to the climactic gunfights.

Gunfights in real life tend to be short and nasty resulting in very dead people, usually with various bodily organs evenly distributed around the local environment. Hollywood of course likes to have a good twenty minute finale to a film and this is no exception. Every move and bullet was choreographed like a ballet and at times resembles some of John Woo's Hong-Kong based blood fests. On a more learned note, the cinematographer Charles Lang in gave the film a brown, burnt-out, aged look to resemble a Remmington painting and the photos of the old West. This either enhances the period atmosphere or begins to irritate after the second reel depending on the depth of your appreciation.

Review by Dave Pallin
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95