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Monday, February 26, 2018

GUNFIGHT AT O.K. CORRAL (1957)

One more O.K. Corral pic. For some, the O.K. Corral pic. And if you suspect it’s no more beholden to the facts than any of the others, that’s O.K., it only needs to convince while you watch. No classic on the order of John Ford’s MY DARLING CLEMENTINE/’48, but mighty classy in its own way, especially in its use of Hollywood star power. Burt & Kirk, of course, as man-with-a-badge Wyatt & man-with-a-gun ‘Doc,’ but also Rhonda Fleming as good ‘bad’ girl & Jo Van Fleet as overwrought ‘bad’ good girl; plus John Ireland, Earl Holliman, Jack Elam, Dennis Hopper, Lee Van Cleef, Martin Milner, THE SEARCHERS’ Olive Carey, many many more. Leon Uris’s script is structurally a tough nut to crack, with major new characters showing up in new locations well into the Third Act, but director John Sturges maintains a steady suspense-building tread that really pays off. So too, the remarkable clarity & depth-of-field he gets out of the VistaVision process working with lenser Charles Lang. Note his staging on the larger interior sets for a near-3D effect; and those logistically ‘readable’ shoot-em-ups. Nothing groundbreaking, but a kind of filmmaking that once gave Hollywood professionalism a good name.

DOUBLE-BILL: Sturges, unhappy with vet producer Hal Wallis’s action-oriented final cut, made something of an unofficial sequel in HOUR OF THE GUN/’67 with James Garner & Jason Robards stepping into the Earp/Holliday roles. It's one of those odd films that seem to play without a shadow, leaving no mark.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Dmitri Tiomkin’s memorable score has a recurring theme song for Frankie Laine with a whistled motif that, on its own, stripped of lyrics, might have served Ennio Morricone for a Sergio Leone ‘Spaghetti Western.’

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