GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957)

During the making of the second of their six big screen pictures together, Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster became lifelong friends. While their first collaboration, I Walk Alone (1948), had cast them as rival gangsters, in their second, however, they played allies. They star as gunfighter Doc Holliday (Douglas) and lawman Wyatt Earp (Lancaster), who set out to help Earp’s brother deal with the villainous Clanton Gang in Tombstone, Arizona. The famed showdown between the Earps and the Clantons had been filmed at least three times before, most notably in John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1946). However, Sturges’ version stands out for sheer grandeur, with Charles Lang shooting the action in VistaVision and Technicolor. Sturges also turned the showdown, which originally lasted only 30 seconds, into a five-minute tour-de-force of suspenseful acting and editing. Rhonda Fleming and Jo Van Fleet co-star as Lancaster and Douglas’ love interests, respectively, with John Ireland as Clanton ally Johnny Ringo and Earl Holliman as the Earps’ loyal deputy.

d. John Sturges, 122m, 8p/35mm VistaVision

8P/35mm VistaVision print courtesy of Paramount Pictures Archive.