Lawman Wyatt Earp and outlaw Doc Holliday form an unlikely alliance which culminates in their participation in the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
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CinemaSerf
6
By CinemaSerf
Sometimes colour photography didn't really help a production, and I think this film is one such instance. The plot centres on renowned peace officer Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) who decides to head back to Tombstone and take up with his brothers. His arrival pitches him against local card-sharp, and deadly gun slinger, "Doc" Holliday (Kirk Douglas) who has a serious, terminal, drink problem. The antics of the lawless Clanton gang cause the two to hook up, and when the younger Jimmy Earp (Martin Milner) is gunned down by mistake, the battle lines are drawn for the now infamous shoot-out. Somehow, though, this just doesn't ever catch fire. There is virtually no chemistry between Lancaster and Douglas; the dialogue is sluggish, the romances clutter up the plot especially the on/off/on again one between Holliday and "Kate" (Jo Van Fleet) and John Ireland exudes precisely no menace as the ill-fated Johnny Ringo. It is too long and far too slowly paced with little enough action until the denouement which, admittedly, has a real-time feel to it with some added acrobatics and a bit of pyrotechnics as the gunfight kills just about everyone. I found the Holliday/Ringo grudge to be the more interesting, but the whole film just lacked any sense of the real life grittiness and brutality these folks lived in. The production is certainly slick and professional, but Dimitri Tiomkin's score reminded me more of "55 Days in Peking" meets the "Alamo" with some unremarkable Frankie Laine songs thrown in too - and I felt the whole thing was all just a bit too sterile and underwhelming.
