Once again, I find myself watching a set of westerns. As it happens, I have 6 different versions of the "OK Corral" story, and for the first time, I decided to dig them out and watch all 6 back-to-back.
I started out with MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, directed by John Ford, and starring Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Tim Holt, and Walter Brennen.
Next up-- on the same tape (I got both of these for my Dad), GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL, directed by John Sturges, and starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Martin Milner, DeForest Kelley, Whit Bissell and others.
Last night, I watched the 1994 tv-film, WYATT EARP: RETURN TO TOMBSTONE. This is a bizarre concoction. They took 4 of the last episodes of THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WYATT EARP tv series starring Hugh O'Brien, colorinzed them, severely edited them to speed up the plot transitions, spliced them together and then added a framing sequence in 1914 starring the 1994 version of Hugh O'Brien, who's relating events of 35 years earlier. The story in this is more complicated than usual, and due to the severe editing job, some of it is not that easy to follow. Someone suggested it would be better if they just reissued the entire series. I noted at the IMDB that after around 225 episodes, the OK Corral storyline was apparently the grand finale of the entire series. Oddly enough, the actual gunfight was the most historically accurate ever done, until the movie TOMBSTONE came along (and the film WYATT EARP 6 months after that).
Tonight: THE GUNFIGHTERS, with William Hartnell. Would you believe? This is the first time I've ever pulled a lone Hartnell DOCTOR WHO story out of the set to watch by itself. I had a big smile on my face the whole time. There's 2 Gerry Anderson veterans in this-- Shane Rimmer as one of the bad guys, and David Graham as "Charlie" the bartender, using the same "Walter Brennen" accent he had on FIREBALL XL5 !
I notice, checking the IMDB, that John Alderson, who played Wyatt Earp in this, while born in England, appeared in a ton of American TV shows all thru the 60's. It looks like they got him back to England just for this story!
Anthony Jacobs, who played Doc Holliday, I've only ever seen in one other thing, an episode of THE SAINT. He's quite a "character" as Doc, and reminds me a bit of American actor Hans Conreid (but with a different accent).
I don't know too many of the actors in this, but Laurence Payne, who played Johnny Ringo, was apparently one of the better-known in England. I see he played one of the main characters, the scientist Dastari, in THE TWO DOCTORS, with Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Patrick Troughton, Fraser Hines & Jacqueline Pearce. That was one of my favorites from that season.
Tomorrow night (if I can find it)-- "Spectre of the Gun" with William Shatner as not really Ike Clanton and Ron Soble as no doubt the most cold-blooded, murderous Wyatt Earp ever seen on film. (Soble was apparently a regular on the western series THE MONROES during 1966-67, playing a character named "Dirty Jim".)
Finally, the climax of this mini-marathon will be TOMBSTONE with Kurt Russell. Saw that in a theatre when it came out, was totally blown away by it. I also saw WYATT EARP with Kevin Costner 6 months later, but didn't care for it as much. Reportedly it's much closer to history, but at every point where the 2 pictures tell the same events, Costner comes across as an unlikeable bastard, while in the same circumstances Kurt Russell comes across as flawed yet heroic. In this case, I prefer "Hollywood" to "History".
