10 INTERESTING EARP/HOLLIDAY/O.K. CORRAL WESTERN FILMS
1 My Darling Clementine (1946): Basically a remake of Frontier Marshal (1939), also based on the fictionalized 1931 Wyatt Earp biography by Stuart N. Lake, this John Ford classic wholly ignores history, even getting the year of the gunfight wrong. But poignant moments, Henry Fonda’s performance and Joseph MacDonald’s noirlike cinematography make this among Ford’s best Westerns.
2 Winchester ’73 (1950): Will Geer’s unique take on a Dodge City–era Wyatt is hick-town clownish—until you get him riled. Anthony Mann’s taut revenge tale, however, revitalized the Western genre and star James Stewart’s career
3 Law and Order (1932): Walter Huston plays an Earp-like Frame Johnson, Harry Carey a Doc-based Ed Brandt in this film based on Saint Johnson, the first Western by crime novelist W.R. Burnett (Little Caesar, High Sierra). Grim, leathery—and Andy Devine gets hanged!
4 Warlock (1959): Novelist Oakley Hall’s reimagining of the O.K. Corral story, with Henry Fonda as a town-taming gunman and Anthony Quinn as his overprotective, crippled gambler friend, bears unmistakable homoerotic overtones.
5 Masterson of Kansas (1954): This ho-hum B—maybe C—oater with a wooden George Montgomery as Bat Masterson wouldn’t be worth watching except for character actor James Griffith’s brilliant turn as Doc, delivering lines with wit, charm, dedication and calibrated coldness.
This Cold War Western features Burt
