Doc (1971)

The setting matches many of the similar gritty movies of the late 60's and early 70's. However, much like theses same types of movies, it needs to be viewed as comparable to a comic book or a simple diversion vs. any type of historically accurate story or even a good action film. The only thing this film includes that is something better than Tombstone is the background of Wyatt offering Ike a bounty reward and not being able to deliver. Another reviewer points out the film writer's desire to show the Earps in a negative light...and thus, supposedly a more "realistic" depiction. It may be true that dime novels and films have portrayed Holiday and the Earps as unrealistic "hero" characters, but they were also not outright murderers. The truth is somewhere in between with a group of men trying to make a civilized life and future for themselves in a time and place when and where civilized society barely existed. Keach's acting Skills are not strong in this film. Faye Dunaway is the best actor in this film, but that is not saying much. Overall this film is weak, so watch at your own risk.

Low key to say the least, this Frank Perry film debunks the Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday/Clanton Bros. myth by removing any trace of romanticism or heroism. The characters in this movie are full of regret, fear and, particularly in Holliday's case, a real sense of melancholia. As Doc Holliday, Stacy Keach gives an exceptional performance, underplaying throughout. He's matched by Harris Yulin as an unlikely Earp. There's great chemistry here. Faye Dunaway is Kate Elder, a prostitute (minus even a hint of a heart of gold) who finds herself, if not in love with Holliday, at least hitching her hopes of a better life to him. This is a film with very little hope and director Perry creates a real sense of sadness these desperate characters must have felt. The extremely rich screenplay is by Pete Hamill and the supporting cast includes Penelope Allen as Earp's wife, Michael Witney as a particularly nasty Ike Clanton and Denver John Collins as Clanton's nephew, a not so bright bulb who hero worships Holliday. Sassy Antonia Rey has a cameo as Concha. A great anti-western.

Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday did go to Tombstone to get rich, but this film badly represents the "truth". This is typical of the time (Vietnam era) where law enforcement,traditions, and America were questioned and debunked whenever possible. Liberalism at it's finest.This film may have been thought-provoking (although inaccurate) for it's time, but we've grown up from those days, as we did from the overly-romaticized days that produced "My Darling Clementine" and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Those films were polar opposites of this one, and both were inaccurate. The best film of the Vietnam era on this subject was "Hour of the Gun" made 4 years prior to this one.Add that to "Tombstone" and Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp" as perhaps the most close to accurate on this subject as Hollywood will come.

"Doc" is similar to "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," in that it is a revisionist Western attempting to explode some mythology of the American West, which earlier Hollywood Westerns would glamourize. Here, Doc Holliday and Marshall Wyatt Earp are shown as not quite the good guys Hollywood has long portrayed them to be. The story of "Doc" follows the legendary outlaw Dr. John Henry "Doc" Holliday and his lover "Big Nose Kate" Elder on their way to the storied Gunfight at the OK Corral. Doc Holliday is played by Stacy Keach, as a soft-spoken gent who is deadly with a six-shooter. The film is gritty and dirty, but the profane dialogue seems like it was added just because the screenwriter could. My biggest problem is that the scenes look like they cut away too soon, and should go on at least a few seconds longer. "Doc" may not tell the true story of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, but at least tries to keep an enduring Western legend alive.