Perhaps the most filmed story in movie history, the Earps win again in John Sturges' highly acclaimed interpretation of the battle in Tombstone.
Is it just me or is the actual gunfight always a let down in these movies? If I was going to film this dead horse I'd shoot it from the Clanton's point of view-the more I see Wyatt win the more I want to see him lose. And if we could get Lina Wertmuller to direct we'll end it the night before the gunfight, with the Clanton's high-fiving a certain victory.
My sole motivation for watching this one was to spend a couple of hours with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, admiring their second pairing on screen. Douglas wins the casting battle and gets to play Doc Holliday, everyone's favourite.
Doc always steals the show from Wyatt. Nobody likes a goody-goody, and of course the thing about Doc that makes him such a great character is the fact that he's doomed to die. The consumption gives him a licence to live kamikaze-style, which in turn gives him the courage to team up with Earp, and thus he becomes yet another aging-gunslinger-trying-to-scam-a-spot-in- heaven.
The strength of Douglas's performance is his lack of empathy for the character. He plays him as a pitiful waste rather than a courageous warrior, which makes sense to me. Kirk's Doc hates himself, whereas so many other Docs hate their disease. Kirk sees the disease as a welcome excuse to end a miserable existence.
There's never a false moment when Burt Lancaster is on screen. Even with a cornball character like Wyatt Earp, Burt is completely convincing. His considerable presence doesn't allow him to disappear into his characters like so many of today's top actors are fond of attempting. Instead Lancaster's varied roles twist the viewers preconceptions by showing the many sides of one man, or one image. If you have any doubt about the extraordinary talents of this man watch Gunfight and The Sweet Smell of Success back to back. From angel to arch-angel, Lancaster is always on target.
I wonder if there are O.K. Corral obsessives lurking out there somewhere... organizing annual meetings in Vegas where they can compare DVD collections and devise Kevin Costner assasination plans. If you do belong to such an organization, you certainly don't need me to tell you to watch this film. If you don't belong to such an organization, you just might need me to tell you not to bother. Slightly better than boring, slightly worse than interesting.
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