Blow Out (1981)

If you're a fan or critic of Director Brian De Palma, you know that De Palma has spent a large part of his career making films that borrow, pay homage, or rip off some of Alfred Hitchcock's best works. For the record, I'm a Brian De Palma fan. De Palma's OBSESSION (1976) is his ode to Hitchcock's classic VERTIGO (1958). Both SISTERS (1973) and DRESSED TO KILL (1980) from De Palma have slasher plots inspired by Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960). De Palma also likes to use swirling cameras and high angle shots in many of his films that would make the Master of Suspense blush with pride.

So it may come as a shock that De Palma's best film BLOW OUT (1981) which he both wrote and directed has little to do with Hitchcock and instead seems influenced by European Director Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film BLOW UP. Starring David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave, BLOW UP is about a British fashion photographer who may have accidentally photographed a murder. In De Palma's BLOW OUT, a movie soundman played by John Travolta stumbles onto a political assassination when he records what he thinks may be a gunshot that causes a presidential candidate to crash his automobile into a lake, killing the governor but not the pretty escort accompanying him.

BLOW OUT is not only inspired by Antonioni's BLOW UP (photography) but Francis Coppola's 1974 THE CONVERSATION (sound and wiretapping) and the paranoia political thrillers of the 70s like Alan J. Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974). But De Palma also borrows from real life events including John F. Kennedy's assassination, the Zapruder home movie film that captured Kennedy's shocking death, and the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 when presidential hopeful and younger brother of John F. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy drove his car off a one lane bridge and into a tidal channel killing a young female companion riding with him on Nantucket Island. The tragic accident may have cost the married Kennedy his shot at the presidency.

BLOW OUT is the culmination of a good run of films De Palma made in the late 70's and early 80s like CARRIE (1976), THE FURY (1978), and DRESSED TO KILL. BLOW OUT also has a group of actors that De Palma had worked with in the past who had become his own cinematic troupe including John Travolta (CARRIE), Nancy Allen (CARRIE and DRESSED TO KILL), John Lithgow (OBSESSION) and Dennis Franz (DRESSED TO KILL).

Jack Terry (John Travolta) is a sound editor for Independence Pictures, a Philadelphia film company specializing in cheap horror films like Blood Bath and Blood Bath 2 and his latest project Coed Frenzy. Unhappy with some of the sound effects (including a coed's scream that will have dark overtones later), Jack goes out to a local park that night to record wind and other background effects. While recording, Jack hears tires squeal, a tire blow out, and then sees a sedan crash into a creek within the park. Jack dives into the water. He's able to save the passenger in the car, a woman named Sally Bedina (Nancy Allen) but not the driver. At the hospital, Jack learns that the dead driver was presidential hopeful and current Governor George McRyan (John Hoffmeister). McRyan's Chief of Staff Lawrence Henry (John McMartin) asks Jack to forget there was a young woman in the car with the Governor out of respect for his family and wife. Jack locates a drugged up Sally and they both sneak out the back door of the hospital.

But Jack won't let the accident go. He listens to his sound tape and distinctly hears what sounds like a gunshot before the tire blows. He smells a conspiracy and a cover up. A sleazy photographer Manny Karp (Dennis Franz) suddenly emerges with photos of the accident. Jack cuts out the photos from a magazine and puts them together with his sound revealing the car crash wasn't an accident. Jack discovers Manny and Sally were running a blackmail scam, hired by opponents of Governor McRyan. But McRyan wasn't supposed to be killed. Now Burke (John Lithgow), the hatchet man for the opposition, has gone rogue, trying to clean up the loose ends, erasing Jack's tapes and plotting Sally's murder to keep her quiet.

Jack stops Sally from leaving Philadelphia, convincing her to help him. Haunted by his past working with a police commission to catch crooked cops in which an informant he wired ended up murdered, Jack wants to absolve his sins and catch the people who murdered McRyan. Jack sends Sally to grab Manny's original photos of the accident. Sally manages to get the originals after knocking an amorous Manny out. Jack agrees to show his little film to Frank Donahue (Curt May), a TV news reporter. But Burke sabotages Jack's plan, blocking his phone calls and impersonating Donahue on the phone to have Sally bring the incriminating film and sound to him at Penn Station.

Sally tells the plan to Jack who suspects some thing's amiss. Jack wires Sally, confident this time he can catch the killer and keep Sally safe. But Burke whisks Sally away from the train station. Jack attempts to follow him but the Liberty Day parade blocks his route. Jack crashes his jeep trying to follow her. Fireworks explode in the night sky as Liberty Day concludes, Burke destroys the evidence and prepares to murder Sally. Jack regains consciousness, fleeing from an ambulance, following Sally's screams with his headphones as he races to save her from Burke. But will he find her in time?

If you didn't know from watching BLOW OUT, De Palma is a technical film geek. He's not afraid to experiment and try unconventional things in his films. A favorite De Palma technique is to use split screens so he can show two different actions going on in the same frame or different angles of the same action. It's his way to provide the audience more information. He will also use split screen with one object (like an owl or Travolta) close up on one side of the frame and something smaller but important on the other side of the frame. It looks like it's one shot but it's not. Both objects are in focus which normally wouldn't be possible in a foreground/background shot. BLOW OUT is full of split screens.

Travolta's Jack Terry in BLOW OUT is director De Palma's alter ego. Jack tells Sally he like gadgets and won science fairs in high school. De Palma competed and won science fairs in high school. Travolta's character Jack similar to Keith Gordon's teenage character Peter Miller in DRESSED TO KILL uses technology like sound and film to catch a killer. In DRESSED TO KILL, Peter concocts a time lapse camera to find who murdered his mother. With BLOW OUT, Jack rotoscopes photographs of the accident (animators use rotoscoping) and syncs it up with his sound, creating a mini-film of the assassination.

De Palma and his cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER, THE DEER HUNTER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND) introduce us to a sound editor's tools of the trade -- microphone, recorder, head phones, editing machine, and reel to reel tapes. By educating us, we are partners with Jack as he tries to solve this mystery. In one powerful sequence, De Palma and Zsigmond have the camera spin 360 degrees continuously in Jack's editing room as Jack runs around playing all his tapes, now erased by Burke, trying to find the one with the gun shot and blow out, the camera spinning like so many blank reel to reel tapes. It is dizzying and phenomenal.

BLOW OUT reveals De Palma's humorous dark side. The film opens with a killer spying on nubile college coeds, a film within our film. POV shots of the killer peeping on the girls in their rooms and shower, cheesy sound effects. It's Jack's latest project Coed Frenzy. Slasher films were the rage in the later 70s/early 80s. But then BLOW OUT becomes part-slasher film as Burke begins murdering women who look like Sally, trying to set up a fake Liberty Day strangler angle as he cleans up the governor's murder. The film's finale is De Palma's ultimate laugh as Jack unintentionally records the perfect scream, a macabre ending to this nightmarish thriller.

De Palma sets the film in Philadelphia known as the City of Brotherly Love. A fictional Liberty Day celebration looms for the city. Murals of Benjamin Franklin and other patriotic heroes are shown. But there's no brotherly love in De Palma's Philadelphia. A presidential candidate is murdered. A killer begins murdering innocent women to cover up his mistake. The killer Burke wears a red, white, and blue tie and a button with I LOVE LIBERTY on his lapel. Toward the end of the film, Jack crashes his jeep into a store front window with Liberty or Death etched on it, smashing mannequins dressed as revolutionary heroes including Patrick Henry with a noose around his neck, hanged as a spy by the British. The noose (or in Jack's case wire) is getting tighter and tighter as Jack runs out of time, rushing to save Sally from Burke.

BLOW OUT is probably Travolta's finest performance until over a decade later when Quentin Tarantino would rescue the SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER star from obscurity and cast him as hitman Vincent Vega in PULP FICTION (1994). In BLOW OUT, Travolta's Jack Terry is a haunted man, reduced to working on B horror films after his wire tapping work with the police led to an informant's death. Jack has a righteous side, a chip on his shoulder against corruption and deception. He smells conspiracy with McRyan's death. He wants to right his wrong and catch the bad guys. But in doing so, he jeopardizes the one good thing in his present life Sally. He saved her once but can he save her again?

Nancy Allen plays Sally as a free spirited ingénue (with a Brooklyn accent). She's not dumb but she's not the smartest woman either. Men try to take control of Sally's life and exploit her, first Manny Karp, later Jack Terry. But she's charming and we care about her. Nancy Allen was married to Brian De Palma for five years and they made four films together. Not to be confused with Karen Allen (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, STARMAN), Nancy Allen had a good career going in the mid 70s and 80s with roles in STRANGE INVADERS (1983) and ROBO COP (1987).  But like many actresses as they reach their 40s, the roles began to drop off for Allen. The last thing I saw Nancy Allen in was a bizarre cameo in Steven Soderbergh's OUT OF SIGHT (1998). Like a few times in De Palma's films, Allen was half-naked, this time as the wife of a criminal played by Albert Brooks. But Allen's best work was her partnership with De Palma in CARRIE, DRESSED TO KILL, and BLOW OUT.

I'd like to think De Palma discovered John Lithgow who he first cast in OBSESSION, only Lithgow's third credit but his first feature film. Lithgow would also appear in BLOW OUT and RAISING CAIN (1992) for De Palma. With his tall frame and long face, Lithgow is creepy as the heavy Burke, the assassin/cleaner in BLOW OUT. He's one step ahead of Jack, destroying evidence like the blown tire or Jack's tapes. Burke's so confident he will clean up his insane mess that we are as surprised as Burke when Jack finds him and redirects the knife meant for Sally into  Burke's chest. Lithgow's career has flourished, appearing in films as diverse as the comedy HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS (1987) to action films like CLIFFHANGER (1993) to his performance as Winston Churchill in the TV series THE CROWN (2016).

Yes BLOW OUT is a political conspiracy thriller with overtones to the Kennedy assassination and Chappaquiddick but De Palma can't completely separate from his infatuation with Hitchcock. BLOW OUT alludes to PSYCHO with the psychotic Burke killing women. Jack's frantic attempt to save the woman he loves and has endangered hearkens back to the finale of VERTIGO as Jimmy Stewart pursues his resurrected love Kim Novak.  Fireworks n the French Rivera play a part in Hitchcock's TO CATCH A THIEF (1955), a metaphor for the sparks flying between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly as they make love.  But for BLOW OUT, the Liberty  Day fireworks have a much more somber, darker denotation. The pyrotechnics are Jack's soul exploding, his guilt and frustration erupting like so many colored rockets in his attempt to save Sally from Burke.

The opening credits for BLOW OUT seem like something that Hitchcock collaborator Saul  Bass (VERTIGO, PSYCHO) might have created, alerting us that we're about to go on a thrilling ride with the title credits speeding like McRyan's out of control car.  The music for BLOW OUT is not Hitchcock like. De Palma uses his favorite Italian composer Pino Donaggio who also did the music for De Palma's CARRIE, DRESSED TO KILL, and BODY DOUBLE (1984). Some of Donaggio's score in BLOW OUT sounds similar to another score he did for one of my favorite horror films, Joe Dante's THE HOWLING (also 1981).

With the success of small story driven films like BLOW OUT and DRESSED TO KILL, De Palma would move up to the world of big budget studio films , directing SCARFACE (1983), THE UNTOUCHBLES (1987), and the first MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE (1996). As with any repeated viewing of a film, I've started to notice bits of implausibility in BLOW OUT but it doesn't matter. BLOW OUT touches a nerve and reels us in with its bravura technical work by De Palma and crew and a story that could have been ripped from today's headlines.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

America fighting for its independence. The splitting of the atom. Henry Ford's invention of the modern automobile. Of all the historical events that have occurred in the United States relatively short history, Hollywood has been obsessed with one relatively minor gunfight involving a well known lawman and his tuberculosis ridden dentist friend against a ruthless band of outlaws. John Ford's MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946), John Sturges's HOUR OF THE GUN (1967), George Cosmatos's TOMBSTONE (1993), and Lawrence Kasdan's WYATT EARP (1994) all tell similar stories about the lives of lawman Wyatt Earp and his gunslinger friend Doc Holliday in the Wild West culminating in their infamous 30 second gun battle with outlaws (the Cowboys) including Ike and Billy Clanton at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona on October 26, 1881.

The two Wild West icons have been played by Henry Fonda and Victor Mature in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE; James Garner and Jason Robards in HOUR OF THE GUN; Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in TOMBSTONE; and Kevin Costner and Dennis Quaid in WYATT EARP. But I left out Hollywood's definitive production of the skirmish, shot in Technicolor and VistaVision, John Sturges' GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957) with two of its biggest stars at the time in Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as John "Doc" Holliday. I like GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL for a lot of reasons although it's not my favorite film about Wyatt and Doc. John Ford's MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (shot in black and white) is my favorite, a more mythical and idealized version of their story.

My favorite Wyatt Earp is Henry Fonda in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE followed closely by Lancaster's portrayal. Kurt Russell's moustache is too distracting in TOMBSTONE. And James Garner who played Earp in John Sturges second telling of the tale HOUR OF THE GUN is miscast. Garner is better as an extrovert but Earp is more of an introvert. My favorite Doc Holliday is Val Kilmer's roguish turn in TOMBSTONE ("I'll be your huckleberry") followed by Kirk Douglas's interpretation. Kilmer looks thin and sick like the real Doc. Victor Mature's Doc in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE seems neither from the South nor sickly. The older films show us Wyatt and Doc leading up to the gunfight. The newer films TOMBSTONE and WYATT EARP have the O.K. Corral incident as one part of their story but go on to show us what happened to the men after the O.K. Corral. I have not seen Kasdan's WYATT EARP with Kevin Costner as Marshal Earp but nothing I have heard or read leads me to believe it's better than MY DARLING CLEMENTINE or GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL.

GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL provides the dream team of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.  Wyatt and Doc may be the most famous legends of the Wild West since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The allure with them might be that Wyatt was good and Doc a bit shady but they were friends to the end. With a screenplay by Leon Uris (who would later write the novels Exodus and Trinity) suggested by an article by George Scullin, GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL has big vistas (courtesy of veteran western cinematographer Charles Lang, Jr), the great Frankie Laine singing and whistling the title song Gunfight at the O.K Corral, and plenty of young actors as sidekicks, deputies, or villains we would become more familiar with in years to come.

It's 1879 in Fort Griffin, Texas. Ed Bailey (Lee Van Cleef) rides into town with two other cowboys looking to kill gambler and former dental student Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas), the man who killed his brother. Doc is holed up in a nearby hotel with his sometime girlfriend Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet). Marshal Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) also rides into town from Dodge City, Kansas. Earp is pursuing killers Ike Clanton (Lyle Bettger) and Johnny Ringo (John Ireland) but local sheriff Cotton Wilson (Frank Faylen) has let them pass through. Doc ends up facing Ed Bailey and kills him in self defense. Wyatt and Kate help Doc escape a lynch mob. The team of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday begins.

Wyatt warns Doc to stay away from his town of Dodge City but Doc shows up anyway (no one wants Doc in their town either). Laura Denbow (Rhonda Fleming), a beautiful red headed gambler rolls into Dodge City too. Wyatt and Doc vie for her affections but Wyatt wins out. A jealous Kate bolts town, later to hook up with Johnny Ringo. With many of Wyatt's deputies out of town on a cattle drive, Wyatt asks Doc to help him catch some bank robbers. Doc agrees, feeling he owes Wyatt a debt for saving his life earlier. The cattle drive arrives in Dodge City along with Shanghai Pierce (Ted DeCorsia), Johnny Ringo, and a host of Cowboys, causing mayhem. They even wound Wyatt's only remaining deputy Charlie Bassett (Earl Holliman). Wyatt returns to town from a ride with Laura just in time to stop Shanghai with Doc and the townsfolk assistance.

Wyatt and Laura prepare to head out to California and get married when a telegram changes Earp's life. His brother Virgil Earp (John Hudson) needs Wyatt's help cleaning up the town of Tombstone, Arizona where Virgil is sheriff. Wyatt can't say no.  But Laura can. She ends their relationship. As Wyatt rides out of town, he's joined by Doc who's luck has run out in Dodge City. Doc hopes the warm climate will appeal to his health. The two men arrive in Tombstone to learn Ike Clanton is rustling stolen cattle out of Mexico along with Johnny Ringo and young Billy Clanton (a young Dennis Hopper). He needs to move it through Tombstone. Wyatt and Virgil along with brothers Morgan (DeForest Kelley) and James Earp (Martin Milner) create a law prohibiting guns in Tombstone. The Clanton's test the law but are kicked out of town. Ike wants Wyatt dead and plans an ambush the next night but his men kill brother James Earp instead of Wyatt.

Ike sends brother Billy to set up the final showdown between the two clans at the O.K. Corral the next morning. Kate shows up in Tombstone after hanging out with Ringo. Doc is seriously ill. The odds look hopeless.  It's just the three Earp brothers versus Ike, Finn, and Billy Clanton; Johnny Ringo, the McLowery brothers, and Cotton Wilson. As the Earp's head into town, the ailing Doc Holliday joins them and the most famous gunfight in the West commences as good squares off against evil.

GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL is like a Howard Hawks or Sam Peckinpah western with men following a code of honor even if they're not exactly cut from the same cloth. Wyatt is from the North, a Union man who follows the rules and upholds the law. Doc Holliday is a Southerner who gambles and whores and has killed many men not always in self-defense. Doc lives on the fringe of the law. But circumstances bring these two polar opposites together as they owe each other a debt and repay that debt. They become a team and eventually friends. Even though Doc owes no alliance to Wyatt or his brothers, he's with them to face the Clanton's at the O.K. Corral. Doc becomes like another brother to Wyatt.

Just as interesting as the relationship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL are the relationships between Doc with girlfriend Kate Fisher and Wyatt with gambler Laura Denbow. Doc and Kate have an abusive love/hate relationship. They're like drug addicts. They try to leave each, disparage one another but they can't break the habit of their relationship. They're co-dependent on one another. Kate (in real life known as Big Nose Kate) is an alcoholic, prone to violent men like Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday. But she's tough too. She helps  Doc escape Fort Griffin and later, keeps Doc awake so he can participate in the legendary gunfight.

Laura Denbow is the opposite of Kate.  Refined, sophisticated, and a good gambler to boot, Laura doesn't expect any special favors from her male gambling competitors except for good manners and taking their money. When Wyatt Earp throws her in jail for no good reason (except he likes her), she takes it all in stride, not asking for any special favors as she enters the small cell because she's a lady. Where Doc and Kate have weaknesses, Wyatt and Laura are strong and confident.  Laura's so confident, when Wyatt receives the telegram that his brother Virgil needs his help, Laura breaks off their engagement.  She will not be dragged around from town to town like somebody else's wife.  Kate and Laura are strong female characters in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL although not in the same way. Kudos to costume designer Edith Head for her colorful green and crimson dresses that actresses Fleming and Van Fleet wear like exotic birds of paradise.

Hollywood of course takes liberties with the facts surrounding the battle in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL and its two heroes Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. For instance, the actual gunfight was not at the O.K. Corral but in an empty lot behind the O.K. Corral (in the films, the filmmakers make sure to have plenty of signs with O.K. CORRAL visible so we know where the men are). The actual gunfight lasted 30 seconds but in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, it goes on for about five minutes.

GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL is always portrayed as a battle of good versus evil but according to Wyatt Earp biographer Andrew C. Isenberg, Earp and his brothers actually were working together with the Clanton's and McLowery's until a disagreement led to the infamous confrontation. It was more "police officers versus informants" Isenberg states. Doc Holliday studied to be a dentist (in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE he's a surgeon). Most interesting, Wyatt Earp is shown in movies as an honest, law abiding marshal but truth is often stranger than fiction. Biographer Isenberg says Wyatt Earp was a self promoting opportunist, constantly reinventing himself. Earp was actually a professional gambler who worked as an amateur law officer for less than five years including the O.K. Corral incident.  The real Wyatt Earp would later try to rewrite his legend with various writers before he died in 1929.

John Sturges' GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL influence shows up in future Westerns. Frankie Laine's title song Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with his whistling and composer Dimitri Tiomkin's horse hooves beat may have influenced Ennio Morricone's (director Sergio Leone's favorite composer) stylish score in A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (1966). Leone would choose two actors from GUNFIGHT for his films, making an international star out of Lee Van Cleef in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965) and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. Jack Elam would have a memorable cameo in the opening sequence of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969).  The climactic scene in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL where  Wyatt, Morgan, and Virgil Earp walk down a deserted street toward the O.K. Corral joined by Doc Holliday hearkens to Sam Peckinpah's bloody finale in THE WILD BUNCH (1969) as the Wild Bunch strides four across down a dusty Mexican street to battle a small army.

Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas would act in seven films together besides GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL including John Frankenheimer's SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (1964) and their last teaming in Jeff Kanew's TOUGH GUYS (1986). Their Wyatt and Doc are the best combination of the men, a friendship that seems genuine and earned. Lancaster gives the only Wyatt performance so far without a moustache. His Wyatt is masculine, confident, yet restless. Wyatt yearns for a piece of land and a wife to share it with but he's constantly pulled back into fighting the lawlessness of the time. Kirk Douglas seems too fit and strong to play the wheezing Doc Holliday but Douglas wins you over with his charisma. His Doc plays loose with life, willing to gunfight anyone who challenges him because Doc's life is a gamble. He never knows how long he has to live with his tuberculosis.

Rhonda Fleming gets top billing as Lady Luck gambler Laura Denbow but Jo Van Fleet as Doc's on again off again girlfriend Kate Fisher has the showier role. Kate is Doc's nurse, confidant, whore, girlfriend, and fellow alcoholic. Their love is toxic. Van Fleet would also co-star in Elia Kazan's EAST OF EDEN (1955) and COOL HAND LUKE (1967) as Paul Newman's dying mother. Rhonda Fleming as Wyatt's love interest Laura Denbow is a beautiful redhead in the Rita Hayworth tradition although she never became quite as famous as Hayworth.  Fleming's Laura is just one of the guys, using her sex appeal and looks to get a seat at any saloon card table. She's not weak which makes her interesting to both Wyatt and Doc.  Fleming co-starred with Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum in the film noir OUT OF THE PAST (1947) and also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND (1945).

I give director John Sturges a great deal of credit for his knack of finding young interesting actors for his films.  Sturges followed his gut and cast a young Steve McQueen in two of his more well known films THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) and THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963). In GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, Sturges gives us Lee Van Cleef (FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE) as the vengeful Ed Bailey, Earl Holliman (TVs POLICE WOMAN) as Wyatt's loyal deputy Charlie Bassett, Martin Milner (TVs ADAM-12) as Wyatt's doomed younger brother Jimmy, DeForest Kelly (best known as Dr. McCoy on TVs STAR TREK) as brother Morgan, and perennial western bad guy Jack Elam (THE MAN FROM LARAMIE, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF) as Tom McLowery.

In an interesting bit of cinematic trivia, John Ireland who plays sneering gunslinger Johnny Ringo in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL appeared in the first film about Wyatt Earp as Billy Clanton in John Ford's 1946 MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. Ireland would have a prolific career but often starred in Westerns including Howard Hawks RED RIVER (1948) and Sam Fuller's I SHOT JESSE JAMES (1949) although he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Robert Rossen's ALL THE KING'S MEN (1949), a political film. So who plays Billy Clanton in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL? None other than a young actor named Dennis Hopper. Hopper's Billy Clanton is a conflicted kid. He's not sure he wants to be a gunfighter but Ike and Finn are his brothers so he owes his allegiance to them. Hopper bounced around in supporting roles at the beginning of his career like REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955), COOL HAND LUKE (1967), and TRUE GRIT (1969) but then disappeared a bit in the 70s before making a comeback in Francis Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW (1979). Hopper's revival would take off after that with amazing performances in David Lynch's BLUE VELVET (1986) and David Anspaugh's HOOSIERS (also 1986) to name but a few.

The story of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday fighting the Clanton and McLowery's at O.K. Corral is a classic American moment that resonates in our historical lifeblood. The way Hollywood tells it, it's good versus bad with good coming out on top. The truth is a little grayer but for the most part Hollywood gets the story right.  We don't want the Clanton's to win.  We want to root for the underdog. We like that two unlikely men with different backgrounds and morals would unite for a common good.  GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL gives us that story with the dynamite combination of Lancaster and Douglas as Western heroes Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.