Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
(John Sturges, US 1957, 122 min., 35mm)
Director John Sturges’s first recounting of the incidents at the O.K. Corral is the quintessential mid-century Hollywood version, complete with vivid Technicolor and re-teaming Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster for the first time in a decade. Lancaster is Wyatt Earp and Douglas is Doc Holliday, the gunmen tough enough to clean up Tombstone. Based on a 1954 article by George Scullin, the film was criticized or its historical inaccuracies, prompting Sturges to make another film about the incident, Hour of the Gun, a decade later. Still, at the height of the Western genre, this was the version that endured for decades. Watch for early performances from Dennis Hopper, DeForest Kelly, Lee Van Cleef, and Jack Elam.