|
Post by mikef6 on Apr 15, 2018 2:04:52 GMT
Gunfight At The OK Corral / John Sturges (1957). This movie really wanted to be another “High Noon” (1952). They got composer Dimitri Tiomkin and lyricist Ned Washington who were responsible for the song “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling)” to provide a new theme song – which ain’t no “High Noon,” trust me. Additionally, OK opens with three gunslingers riding into town. One of them is Lee Van Cleef. At the end, Wyatt Earp drops his Marshal’s badge onto the floor. OK was the second of seven films in which Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas appear together – that’s counting “The List Of Adrian Messenger” in which Lancaster has but a 23-second cameo in the “unmasking” epilogue. In the minus column is the “deliberate” pace interrupted by occasional bursts of violence. Also, it is just too damn long and the romantic sub-plot gets too much time devoted to it. We don’t even arrive in Tombstone until a few minutes past the half-way mark and the title gunfight happens in the last 10 minutes or so. I won’t get into historical inaccuracies because they don’t really matter in a film of this sort. On the plus side is the ferocious performance by Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday. I know, “ferocious performance by Kirk Douglas” could be considered redundant but Kirk is not always ferocious and when he is, seldom at this level. Oscar winner Jo Van Fleet has the thankless role of the woman who is devoted to Doc, no matter how much he verbally abuses her. Rhonda Fleming is Wyatt Earp’s (Lancaster) lady love. Burt seems a little stiff in his role. Another plus is the plethora of veteran and up-and-coming character actors such as: John Ireland, Lyle Bettger, Frank Faylen, Earl Holliman, Dennis Hopper, Whit Bissel, John Hudson, DeForrest Kelley, Martin Milner, Kenneth Tobey, Jack Elam, and the aforementioned Lee Van Cleef. If that line-up doesn’t send you to this movie, nothing will. Doc Holliday and the surviving Earp Brothers march down the street toward the OK Corral in a staging that sure looks a lot like the march of the Wild Bunch a dozen years later. Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, John Hudson, DeForrest Kelley
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Apr 16, 2018 0:39:17 GMT
I saw it only once and wanted to like it. But damn, it's a slog to get through.
|
|
|
Post by telegonus on Jun 27, 2018 6:53:04 GMT
Gunfight At The OK Corral: good one, it doesn't seem to get much love even from westerns buffs. Good as it is I think it would have worked better if, a.) the gunfighters looked dirty, scruffy, more true to life rather than actors in nicely tailored costumes for an A level western, b.) if the town looked like a real western town rather than a movie set. and c.) the film had been either edited down to kick some major butt in its final moments or, if it needed to be long, lived up to its "epic aspirations" and featured a better script, characters the viewer could understand, relate to and in some cases even like. Overall, I like it but wouldn't care to watch it again any time soon. It's rather too controlled in its drama as well as its action. There's an air of unreality to it. I find it impossible to suspend disbelief when watching this one. It's always a movie, well made, it can't help but draw attention to is artifice because that's how it was made. The rousing Dimitri Tiomkin score and Frankie Laine's operatic rendition of the title song are of enormous help, and raise the movie above the level of the routine.
|
|
|
Post by RiP, IMDb on Jun 27, 2018 8:58:47 GMT
I had a thread on the old (now deleted) IMDb board on this film.
|
|
|
Post by taylorfirst1 on Jun 27, 2018 14:40:31 GMT
It's excellent western with a superb cast and great visuals.
|
|
|
Post by MCDemuth on Aug 4, 2018 1:59:40 GMT
I just saw the movie on DVD, yesterday... I wanted to like it, But I didn't think the movie was all that great.. As taylorfirst1 noted, it did have a superb cast and great visuals though... I was impressed that some of the towns looked like they were filmed on location (with old crumbling stone buildings), and was not just entirely shot on some Hollywood backlot... Those things seemed to me, to be the only redeeming values of the film, at least for me...
|
|
|
Post by them1ghtyhumph on Aug 5, 2018 1:12:42 GMT
Great performance by Kirk
|
|