Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

A western built on one of the most retold events of the American frontier. Wyatt Earp is a lawman. Doc Holliday is a gambler, a dentist by training, and dying of tuberculosis. They meet in Kansas, where Earp lets him go rather than arrest him, and something between the two men begins there. Later Earp goes to Tombstone, Arizona, where his brothers are. The Clanton family controls the country around the town and the sheriff is on their side. Holliday follows him. Most of the film is not the gunfight but what leads to it: the arguments, the family loyalties, the town waiting, and Earp trying to avoid what everyone can see coming. What the narrative is interested in is the friendship between the two men. Earp works by rules and Holliday by none, and each keeps the other alive. The confrontation itself is at the end and runs several minutes, which was unusually long for its period. Burt Lancaster plays Earp and Kirk Douglas plays Holliday; the two made several films together across their careers. Jo Van Fleet plays Holliday's companion Kate. John Sturges directed. The film treats the real events loosely; the historical fight was over in about half a minute and the participants were fewer. One of the genre's best-known examples for anyone who likes classical westerns and the Lancaster and Douglas pairing. For a viewer after historical accuracy, the film follows the legend rather than the record.