There is an athletic battle of movement, with the Earps in particular manoeuvring for position, and finally trapping the Clantons in and around a burning wagon. The shoot-out, when it comes, happens over several minutes of time on a clear, bright day.
We know that the Clanton-McLaury gang is mean and duplicitous, and that there will have to be a showdown between Right and Wrong. In the film, the decent, clean-shaven Earp boys are merely 'doing what a man has to do'. This film is interesting, in that it takes a well-known incident for which contemporaneous records abound, and virtually disregards the historical truth. One camp would argue that the artist has total freedom to rework a popular legend such as The Gunfight, while the other extremity would insist on documentary accuracy. There exists a wide spectrum of opinion on the question of how loyal a work of fiction should remain to the historical event which inspired it. Billy (a very young Dennis Hopper) is 'converted' by Wyatt far too easily. ") There is an ugly shadow eclipsing Ike Clanton's face throughout his most important scene. Wyatt is too unrelenting a hard man to win the audience's unqualified sympathy, as in the scene when he tells the all-too-human Cotton, "If you can't handle it any more, turn in your badge." The Frankie Laine ballad, almost de rigeur in 1950's westerns, is simply not up to scratch ("Boot Hill, Boot Hill, so cold, so still. Shot in a rich Technicolor palette, the film's images are strong and clean, and at times even beautiful, for example the barn fire, or the approach of the Earp faction, with Cotton standing facing them, his body framed by the corral building. Douglas made a career out of playing generous-spirited bad guys, and one of the best things in this film is Doc Holliday's heroic effort of will, rising from his sickbed to stand beside his friend in the face of mortal danger. In a nice symmetry, we see the women of both sides dreading the fatal clash as Ma Clanton and Virgil's wife separately mourn the departure of their respective menfolk. Though the film takes an eternity to get to the shoot-out which is its raison d'etre, when the climax finally comes the suspense is built superbly. Both Lancaster and Rhonda Fleming are terrific to look at, but hard to warm to. By comparison, the Earp-Laura love story is cold and staid. Character is also to the fore as a plot-driver when Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet) is forced by the dynamics of her relationship with the Doc into ever more wretched behaviour. The friendship between the paragon and the wastrel is cleverly done, with Earp and Holliday (Kirk Douglas) each seeing something to admire in the other, very different, man. He faces down the armed drunk without the faintest twitch of fear, the embodiment of a strong, righteous enforcer of the law.
Sturges films him with the camera at ground level as he rides onto the screen, making him seem superhuman in his larger-than-life moral certainty. Burt Lancaster is stolid and unyielding as hard lawman Wyatt Earp. In the final analysis, the whole thing is a little too sluggish, a little too formulaic. For me, however, the film doesn't quite work. One of Hollywood's major offerings of 1957, "Gunfight" contains all the ingredients one would expect of a blockbuster - big stars, big budget and a storyline calculated to capture the public's imagination.
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