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Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
USA
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Year
1946
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Genre
Western
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Introduction
“Every scene, every shot is the product of a keen and sensitive eye – an eye which has deep comprehension of the beauty of rugged people and a rugged world.”
Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1946
In the early silent era, young filmmaker John Ford met real-life Western legend Wyatt Earp, who recalled the famous shootout involving Doc Holliday and the Clanton gang. Rather than follow strict historical accuracy, however, Ford’s subsequent screen version (as its oblique title perhaps suggests) instead reflects on what the overall story has to say about the coming of community and civilisation to the lawless frontier, suggesting that transition was achieved thanks to brave men like Henry Fonda’s marshal Earp risking their lives.
The final release print was subject to studio tampering, yet the film’s insistence on finding both serious moral drama and folksy character comedy in material that workaday westerns otherwise reduced to programme fodder shows Ford’s filmmaking at its most cherishable.
The same historical events are covered, with less thematic resonance, in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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Wyatt Earp
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Chihuahua
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Doc John Holliday
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Clementine Carter
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Old Man Clanton
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Virgil Earp
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Morgan Earp
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Granville Thorndyke
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Billy Clanton
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Mayor Jesse
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Kate Nelson
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Ike Clanton
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Mac, the bartender
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John Simpson
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[James Earp]
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[Dad, the old soldier]
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[barber]
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[hotel clerk]
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[Francois]
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[Sam Clanton]
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[Phin Clanton]
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[owner of Oriental Saloon]
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[gambler]
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[stagecoach driver]
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Credits
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Direction:
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Directed by
Production:
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©/Production Company
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Presents
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Produced by
Writing:
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Screen Play by
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Screen Play by
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Based on a book by
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From a story by
Photography:
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Director of Photography
Special Effects:
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Special Photographic Effects
Editing:
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Film Editor
Design:
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Art Direction
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Art Direction
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Set Decorations
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Associate [Set Decorator]
Costumes:
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Costumes
Make-up:
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Makeup artist
Music:
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Music
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Musical Direction
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Orchestral Arrangements
Sound:
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Sound
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Sound
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