Director Frank Perry deconstructs the legends of Doc Holliday (Stacey Keach) and Wyatt Earp (Harris Yulin) with a vengeance in this superb revisionist take on what went down in Tombstone at the OK Corral. Alcoholic former dentist and gunslinging gambler Holliday settles in Arizona to help treat his tuberculosis, wins one of the Clanton gang’s wives, Kate (Faye Dunaway) in a game of poker and runs into old friend, Wyatt (Harris Yulin). Keach hits just the right tone with his portrayal of the dissolute idealist who is alternately at odds with those closest to him but also a loyal friend. Yulin’s Earp is a conflicted, ambitious man, believing in the rule of law, but also a calculating politician campaigning for sheriff, ready to go up against the most powerful interests in town – which just happen to be the Clantons.
“Perry’s approach to those strange events so many years ago in Tombstone is altogether fascinating. It is also a good western. Perry – and Pete Hamill, who wrote the original screenplay – are also brand-new to the western. And so they have created their own genre, in a way, just as McCabe and Mrs. Miller seemed to be discovering the western for itself.” – Roger Ebert
Ariel Schudson discusses Doc on the New Beverly blog.
