GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Paramount, 1957) Kino Lorber

With its rather deceptive title inferring a more epic accounting of that fateful day etched in western lore – the famous ‘gunfight’ lasting barely fifteen-minutes on screen – director, John Sturges’ Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) promises a lot more than it delivers. And yet, it still manages to remain a fairly involving melodrama, frequently anchored in the minutia leading up to that oft told, unusual, if undeniably enduring friendship between gambler, Doc Holliday and squeaky-clean lawman, Wyatt Earp. Of the many cinematic incarnations this story has taken on over the years, Struges’ reincarnation arguably remains one of the most star-studded and lavishly appointed – tricked out in Technicolor and Paramount’s patented VistaVision ‘motion picture high fidelity’ widescreen process. In keeping with Hollywood’s edicts of its day, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a glamorous affair. The west, as depicted here, is a brightly lit, cozily rustic backwater, with its glitzy saloon gals rubbing against craggy cowboys who’ve yet to incur even a speck of dust on their chaps.  Hal Pereira and Walter Tyler’s production design, Sam Comer and Arthur Krams’ set decoration and Edith Head’s recherché costumes instead offer an eerily immaculate milieu, thoroughly out of touch with the dusty/lusty west of reality. Those seeking a more faithful representation of that dry rot and tumbleweed should watch Kevin Jarre and George P. Cosmatos’ impeccably crafted Tombstone (1993), because the west in ‘Gunfight’ is…well…pretty and pretty damn tidy to boot. Even Boot Hill takes on the Disneyland derivative of Frontier-land as do Fort Griffin, Dodge City and the aforementioned town of Tombstone, transformed into tourist attractions that just happen to be populated by lawless gunslingers, happy harlots and virtuous marshals, ready to forsake personal happiness in order to maintain peace, order and good government for all who reside within its glossy pre-fab borders.

A real curiosity about Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is its bizarre lack of extras. Granted, these are frontier outposts, not thriving metropolises. But these antiseptic sets are made even more disingenuously two-dimensional by an almost total absence of mankind. This isn’t the hustling/bustling whistle stop where anything can happen and generally, anything does. No, what’s here is a sort of embalmed waxworks that only comes to life in the briefest of fits and sparks. In many ways, ‘Gunfight’ unfolds as a three-act drawing room tragedy, not a sprawling movie western. Leon Uris’ screenplay (suggested by an article from George Scullin) focuses on two failed romances, one obvious murder, and a brutal showdown that leaves no desperado standing. The chief hurdle in Uris’ prose seems to be an utter disinterest in pursuing any of the aforementioned narrative threads to a satisfactory conclusion. We are introduced to characters who simply sift in, then out of view, or bow out entirely. Minor narrative threads are intricately plotted, then rather sloppily abandoned. Perhaps, Uris is going for a sort of awkward verisimilitude here; something about the imperfect nature of life in general, and the western saga in particular. Alas, nothing seems to gel. And last, though certainly not least of all, we are shown human carnage without bloodshed. The penultimate gunfight is as neat and tidy as a hayride through a petting farm where all of the animals just happen to walk on two legs. At times, Uris’ shortsightedness is met by Sturges’ inability to do anything more than move the tale along through a series of exasperating vignettes. At best, Sturges tries to bottle Uris’ unkempt storytelling – weighing upon history whitewashed to mask some very second-rate melodrama.

Important to note, movie westerns of this ilk are undeniably a white man’s world with token estrogen to decorously augment the scenery. A director like Howard Hawks might have made something more – or rather, better – of Laura Denbow (flashy Rhonda Fleming) or Kate Fisher (played with infinitely greater competent by actress, Jo Van Fleet). These are the only two prominently-featured women, each respectively made the martyr by their castoff paramours - Wyatt (played with burly aplomb by Burt Lancaster) and Doc (a butch Kirk Douglas). But in ‘Gunfight’ they are merely archetypes indigenous to the movies: the pining virgin and whore with a heart of gold. Auburn-tress vixen, Laura Denbow is the virtuous sort, casually tossing Wyatt a coin after he releases her from jail, but slyly to instruct him to buy a better fitting halo to compliment his saintly façade. The platinum floozy, Kate epitomizes the ‘fallen woman’, jaded and prematurely aged, but still prone to believe in wishing wells and rainbows as she desperately tries to pick up the tatters of her imploding relationship with Doc. Depressing to see how each actress gets short shrift here: Rhonda Fleming, decidedly more underused, despite a far more promising ‘not so’ cute meet with Wyatt (he arrests her for gambling because women have no place in a saloon). This generates a few well-timed sparks via some fairly snappy dialogue. Regrettably, Laura quickly retreats to a cliché as love-struck fodder for the would-be guy whose halo really is on too tight. Jo Van Fleet’s Kate does not fare much better, although she remains a fixture in the plot right until the bitter end.

History teaches that the real Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp were archetypal men of action and decision. Their ensconced iconography as gallant figures of the old west have remade them as more butch than brave here, and more brawn than brain - casting Hollywood he-hunks – Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster – to fill formidable boots. The complicated relationship between the real Doc and Wyatt is muted to the tradition of the buddy/buddy template. Wyatt and Doc start out on a slightly adversarial note, verbally sparring in a bro-mantic way, before ending up as a united front against the movie’s villains - the Clantons. Ultimately, Uris has chosen to represent the similarities in Doc and Wyatt’s mindset, rather than make any legitimate attempt to flesh out either as an independently functioning entity. This Doc is Wyatt, just at a later juncture in a similarly themed life path. Their intersection at a particularly introspective crossroads – at least for Wyatt – alters his decision to abandon his ‘halo’ for a good woman. Once again, Uris’ screenplay endeavors to make counterpoints in the Doc/Kate and Wyatt/Laura relationships. But neither heterosexual romance is satisfactory, perhaps because the men would rather sacrifice everything for each other.  Too bad it takes 122-minutes to get to this obvious conclusion. The Wyatt/Laura relationship is depicted in very broad strokes of the axiomatic ‘opposites attract’ paradigm. Wyatt is almost instantly drawn to this feisty con. But he suppresses his male urges, instead resorting to ridiculous faux chivalry – placing Laura under arrest, merely for doing as the boys do in town, though rather obviously meant to keep her apart from them, and, decidedly all for himself.

Doc senses Wyatt’s truer motives and arrives at the jail to spring Laura from her cell. But that is about as far as Doc’s friendship with Laura will go. Besides, he has his own romantic woes with Kate, who loves him tragically, so much she would rather see him dead than alone. Our introduction to the Kate/Doc affair is tempestuous to say the least. He wields a knife at her after she ridicules his southern gentry. She reciprocates by retrieving the blade stuck in a nearby wall and attempting to plunge it into her beloved’s heart. Oh yeah…they’re in love for sure. After being spurned by Doc, Kate takes up with his nemesis, Johnny Ringo (John Ireland). It’s not love – just sex – or rather, assumed behind closed doors. After Wyatt’s brother, James (Martin Milner) is gunned down by the Clantons and Ringo during a midnight ambush near the OK Corral, Kate returns to Doc’s side. His brutal ambition to choke the life from her gets thwarted by a fairly violent coughing spell – a hint of his rapidly-advancing tuberculosis. Neither Kate nor Doc is the ‘forgive and forget’ type. But each comes to their senses, realizing they cannot do without the other.

In Gunfight at the O.K. Corral we have two great stars – Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster – who ostensibly have done better work elsewhere. Even so, it is the genuineness in each’s performance that outshines the material they have been given. As Earp and Holliday mark the quintessence of another epoch, Douglas and Lancaster tower over movie lore as few from their generation. It’s their combined drawing power on a marquee that lends Gunfight more ballast than it is actually owed. Without them, the picture is just a streamlined and unprepossessing, B-grade melodrama gussied up in the technological advantages of mid-fifties’ film-making. Douglas’ Doc is the flashier role. And like his fictional counterpoint, Douglas is prone to bouts of well-placed and even better-timed bombast, as in the moment where Doc unexpectedly pierces gunslinger, Ed Bailey (Lee Van Cleef) with his switchblade, or in the scene when Doc slowly closes the door to Kate’s hotel room, with bone-chilling daggers protruding in darkly purposed menace from his eyes. Douglas is so right for the part of this doomed cardsharp turned nobler companion on Wyatt’s knight’s errand. There is an intuitively animalistic, though genuinely majestic quality to Doc’s subtle transformation. Douglas’ performance takes the character from implacable scallywag, looking out for number one, to careworn crusader on a cause more worthy of his skills. On the flipside is Burt Lancaster’s taciturn, yet self-sacrificing lawman. Lancaster’s reputation is largely built into this model of silent dignity, his repertoire consisting of stoic figures hard-won in their victories, quietly embittered by their defeats, but still clear-eyed and capable of seeing the world and the people in it without any subterfuge.

We begin in Fort Griffin, Texas; a gritty little hamlet where gunslinger, Ed Bailey has come to avenge the death of his brother, put in the ground at Boot Hill by John H. ‘Doc’ Holliday. Knowing Bailey is up to no good, Doc’s gal-pal, Kate, hurries back to their shared hotel room to forewarn of impending trouble. The two incessantly bicker over Doc’s sullen fatalism. Kate attempts to goad Doc to see things her way by sarcastically criticizing his once-prominent southern lineage. Taking out his aggressions, Doc flings one of his knives into the wall just beyond Kate’s head. She responds by attempting to attack Doc with his own weapon, though not really. Like all motivations yet to follow, Kate is the ‘faithful as a birddog’ type and can’t be devious for very long. She desperately wants to be Doc’s girl. But he is aloof – perhaps already conscious of his fatal disease.

Running a parallel course is Wyatt Earp’s arrival to Fort Griffin, believing he has come to arrest and take Ike Clanton (Lyle Bettger) and Johnny Ringo into custody. Instead, Wyatt discovers the local sheriff, Cotton Wilson (Frank Faylen) has released both from prison, despite their outstanding warrants. Red flags go up.  Wyatt badgers Cotton, then later, Doc, who has a natural disregard for all lawmen – but particularly Wyatt’s brother, Morgan (DeForest Kelley) and absolutely refuses to help. Confronting Bailey at the bar, Doc surprises the belligerent gunslinger with an expert knife-throw. The blade fatally strikes Bailey in the chest. As a linch mob gathers, Kate pleads with Wyatt to help Doc escape. A lawman first and foremost, Wyatt is also not without compassion. After all, the mob does not seek justice – only revenge. So, Wyatt decides to help Doc and Kate flee under the distraction of a hayloft fire.

Not long afterward, Wyatt and Doc’s paths crisscross again, this time in Dodge City, Kansas. Dodge is a perfectly peaceful town. It does not need the likes of Doc Holliday to stir things up. Wyatt orders Doc to leave. In the first of their many quid pro quos, Wyatt concedes Doc can stay in town, but only if he promises no more killings. Doc agrees to Wyatt’s terms and the bond of friendship is considerably strengthened. In the meantime, Wyatt becomes distracted by the arrival of Laura Denbow, a ravishing lady gambler who inadvertently breaks the law by playing cards with the big boys.  Despite strenuous objections from the saloon’s proprietor, Laura is arrested by Wyatt and taken to jail. Wyatt’s deputy, Charlie Bassett (Earl Holliman) coaxes Wyatt into a reprieve. Actually, it does not take much.  Wyatt is attracted to Laura and she knows it. Moreover, she will not hold her incarceration against him, because she too wholeheartedly reciprocates his affections.  Wyatt softens his stance on women gamblers, allowing Laura to play poker in a private room at the saloon.

Wyatt’s deputies form a posse in search of an outlaw, forcing Wyatt to deputize Doc after bank robbers murder one of its cashiers. It’s all part of a well-orchestrated ambush by Shanghai Pierce (Ted de Corsia) to get Wyatt out in the open. Instead, Wyatt and Doc stake out the robbers – men loyal to Pierce – by pretending to be asleep, gunning them down as they approach the camp.  Upon his return to Dodge, Doc discovers Kate has left him for Ringo. Back at the saloon, Ringo makes several attempts to incur Doc’s wrath and force him into a showdown, thereby breaking his oath to Wyatt. Instead, Doc refuses to fight. That same evening, Shanghai and his men ride into town. They break up a social gathering at the dancehall.  But things quiet down – momentarily – after Wyatt and Doc arrive. Ringo once again tries to coerce Doc into a showdown. But only after Ringo draws his six-shooter does Doc respond, deliberately wounding Ringo in the arm. He might just as easily have shot him dead. Still, a promise is a promise. 

As far as promises go, Wyatt has made a rather fateful one to Laura - to retire and live plainly and obscurely with her. Wyatt invites Doc to the reception. But Doc is his usually deprecating self, telling Wyatt he is better at funerals than weddings. Returning to the sheriff’s office for what he believes will be the last time, Wyatt is confronted by an urgent telegram from his brother, Virgil, begging his assistance to help clean up the town of Tombstone, Arizona. As blood is thicker than water, Wyatt makes a valiant stab to explain his decision to leave for Tombstone to Laura. She openly informs him she will never acquiesce to being the wife of a lawman, living in constant fear of a hero’s death. Wyatt professes his undying love, but rides off without Laura just the same. It is a bittersweet moment, moderately quelled when Doc decides to accompany Wyatt to Tombstone.

Upon their arrival, Wyatt learns of Ike Clanton’s crooked plans to ship a thousand head of stolen cattle. He would have already done it too, except the Earps control Tombstone’s rail depot.  Wyatt’s elder brother, Morgan, heavily criticizes Wyatt’s association with Doc. But Wyatt comes to Doc’s defense, explaining that any gunslinger can remain in town so long as he stays out of trouble. Wyatt’s youngest brother, James confides he has a girl waiting for him back in California whom he intends to marry. Seeing shades of his own predicament mirrored in James’ hunger to settle, Wyatt vows to reform Tombstone swiftly. Alas, also in Tombstone is Cotton, the corrupt ex-sheriff of Fort Griffin, who now offers Wyatt a $20,000 bribe if he will allow the Clanton’s stolen cattle to be shipped to Mexico. The money could certainly give Wyatt a start in his life with Laura. But he refuses to be swayed by greed. Instead, Wyatt rides to the Clanton’s farm with their youngest son, Billy (Dennis Hopper) who has been caught drunk and disorderly. Wyatt tries giving the lad some solid advice. Gunslinger is not a profession. It’s a death warrant. Billy seems convinced, but later forsakes this common sense.

The Clantons, Ringo and Cotton conspire to murder Wyatt as he makes his rounds in town. Kate, who has overheard this plot, says and does nothing. But James decides to go on the rounds in his brother’s stead. In the darkness, Ike’s men confuse James for Wyatt and shoot him in cold blood. Wyatt is now out for revenge – not justice. Doc, whose tuberculosis has rapidly advanced, urges Wyatt to simply walk away. But it’s no use. At dawn, the Earps will confront the Clantons at the OK Corral. In the meantime, Doc returns to his hotel room to find Kate pensively waiting. He ruthlessly confronts her about the Clantons’ murder of young James, to which she confesses having prior knowledge. In response, Doc attacks Kate, her narrow escape achieved only after he suffers a crippling coughing spell that leaves him depleted and lying on the floor. At dawn Wyatt comes to Doc’s room to discover him ailing badly. Kate shoos Wyatt away. “Can’t you see he’s dying?” she coolly explains. Ah, but there is still an ounce of life left in Doc, and he proves it by mustering up enough energy to rejoin Wyatt for his showdown with the Clantons at the corral.

In a blazing display of marksmanship, Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan and Doc make short shrift of the Clantons. Ike kick-starts the battle by killing Cotton (who has had an attack of cowardice). Wyatt and Doc finish off the Clantons, all except Billy, who is let to flee back into town. Reluctant to kill Billy, Wyatt instead pleads with the young man to surrender his pistols and face the consequences of his actions. Naively, Billy takes a potshot at Wyatt. Doc, who has no personal affinity for the boy, shoots Billy from his balcony perch, his lifeless body plummeting to the ground. The Clantons defeated, Wyatt casts his U.S. Marshal’s tin star at Billy’s feet (a rather glaring rip-off of Gary Cooper’s gesture at the end of Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon 1952).  In their penultimate farewell, Doc – remarkably restored to health - is seated at a poker table. He and Wyatt share a stiff drink before Wyatt gallops away, presumably to be reunited with Laura as planned.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is only a middling western at best. What sobering aspects in the camaraderie between Wyatt and Doc might have manifested, are instead ground to a clumpy pulp of quaintly scripted melodrama. The constantly shifting locales cause us to lose sight of Earl Holliman’s congenial Charlie Bassett, Rhonda Fleming’s sultry Laura Denbow, and, finally Lee Van Cleef’s dastardly Ed Bailey – the latter, much too soon. Arguably, these are tertiary characters, incidental to the main story. Except the main story – at least, according to the movie’s title – is the gunfight. Yet, this is over before it gets started. And making the audience wait 200+ minutes for an anemic shootout makes for a very anti-climactic finale. The movie’s gravest failing is therefore its plodding plotting; also, whetting our expectation for a more satisfactory ending. Doc’s miraculous recovery from tuberculosis is naively idyllic. We never learn what has become of Kate or Wyatt and Laura’s relationship. This lack of resolution, while open-ended, is also rather off-putting. Dimitri Tiomkin’s score is interpolated with a ballad sung by Frankie Lane. This has woefully dated. But it more often interrupts (rather than augments) the action, especially whenever Leon Uris’ screenplay has painted itself into a narrative corner. Regrettably, this happens with increasing frequency as the story unfurls and begins to endlessly shift in its travels. So, the picture is held together, not by story, but by its two finely wrought male star performances. It’s the Lancaster/Douglas strained buddy/buddy chemistry that keeps everything afloat.

Kino Lorber has released a 4K UHD incarnation of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The devil is in the details, as Charles Lang’s cinematography sports a subtler palette than is customary for vintage Technicolor-dye/VistaVision product. How does it fare in ultra-hi-def. With improved color saturation, markedly improved flesh tones, better resolved contrast, and infinitely more finite processed grain.  So, is it better than the old Blu-ray release from Paramount proper? In a word – yes. Is it perfect? Alas, no. There is some very minute, but ever-present edge enhancement at work here. Exactly how this artificial sharpening has come to be baked into a 4K release is, at once disheartening, and exacerbating. By now, the application of DNR to film-based content should be antique. Once again, we get two audio options: a remastered 2.0 mono and a reimagined 5.1 DTS.  Curious to note, Paramount’s patented use of Perspecta ‘directionalized’ stereo is not included. Perhaps, these tracks have not survived. There’s a new audio commentary from author/historian, C. Courtney Joyner. It’s all over the place, but offers some nuggets of wisdom worthy of a listen. The only other extra is a badly worn trailer. But this is only included on the standard Blu-ray – not the 4K. Bottom line: while there is nothing to improve upon the actual movie, this UHD release could have been much better. Blame Paramount, rather than Kino. But judge and buy accordingly.  

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

1