Westerns with a Wyatt Earp theme.

Frontier Marshal (1939), directed by Allan Dwan. This is the film that inspired John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), some scenes actually reappearing in the Ford film. Here Randolph Scott plays Wyatt Earp and Cesar Romero plays Doc 'Halliday' (spelled this way to avoid litigation from the Holliday family). Neither Earp's brothers nor the Clantons appear, and Doc is killed prior to the OK corral gunfight. Most of the scenes take place at night, giving the film a grim atmosphere. This plus the many interior shots and the staging of some riding scenes on a sound stage give the action a feeling of claustrophobia. Eddie Foy, Jr. plays the part of his father. The two women are effective (Binnie Barnes and Nancy Kelly). All in all, this is an effective telling of the OK Corral story. But coming out in 1939, Frontier Marshal had to compete with Ford's Stagecoach, De Mille's Union Pacific, King's Jesse James, and Marshall's Destry Rides Again. It holds up fairly well and Scott and Romero are both convincing.

 

Law and Order (1932), directed by Edward L. Cahn. Frances and I recently completed watching the Wyatt Earp television series, and so I thought I would take a look at my film collection to see what films I might have with Wyatt Earp. I found a few and we began last evening with this film, known as the first film to give us the gunfight at the OK Corral. The film derives from a novel by W.R. Burnett, Saint Johnson, that purports to be based on Wyatt Earp's memories. The script is partly the work of a young John Huston. Huston's father, Walter, stars as Frame Johnson, clearly a stand-in for Earp. The film tells the story of Johnson arriving in Tombstone with his brother and two other friends, one of whom is a gambler. What stands out is the camera work in this early talking picture. Pans and tracking shots are impressive, and the editing gives the action a hectic feel appropriate for the story. We even have some deep focus. The characters are fleshed out, and Wyatt speaks out against guns and he ends the film expressing something of a hopeless vision for the future of the country with its love of and dependence upon firearms. The cast includes, besides Huston, Harry Carey, Andy Devine, Raymond Hatton, Harry Woods, and Russell Simpson. The costumes worn by the extras are suitably ragged. This is an impressive early version of the Earp story.

Wichita (1955), directed by Jacques Tourneur. Here is another Wyatt Earp film, this one directed by the very classy Jacques Tourneur. Tourneur is best known for films such as the haunting Cat People (1942), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), and the brilliant noir Out of the Past (1947). I like his Comedy of Terrors (1963) and Night of the Demon (1957). He also made one of the finest westerns of the 1940s, Canyon Passage (1946). Wichita is a wide screen beauty. No sound stages or rear projection here. The story focuses on Wyatt Earp's early days in Texas and features his brothers Morgan and James, Ben Thompson, and a few others familiar from the Earp story. He even wears a long-barrelled six-gun, although it is not called a Buntline Special. Vera Miles is the love interest. The film is beautiful to look at, and the story features local political shenanigans rather than out and out villains. Wyatt's attempt to remove guns from the hands of average citizens meets resistance. A recurring theme is Wyatt's stated desire to be a business person, but his inability to walk away from the violence and injustice he encounters. He is destined to be a lawman. Here we have once again that peculiar American insistence on a manifest destiny, in this case Wyatt's manifest calling to the protection of the people. Joel McCrea as Wyatt is suitably stoical and strong, if perhaps rather too old for the part (he is some 20 years older than the actual Wyatt Earp would have been at the time this story takes place. And a side note: Sam Peckinpah has a small role as a bank teller in the film. Some seven or eight years later, McCrea would feature in Peckinpah's magnificent Ride the High Country. You can find a discussion of Ride the High Country elsewhere on this blog.