A wonderful premise for a book that makes fascinating-and surprising-reading for students of history as well as film.”-James Curtis, author of W.C. Blake takes 30 of the most famous seconds in American history and tracks their wanderings through 60 years of moviemaking, adroitly documenting their evolution from fact to legend. “McFarland is to be commended for publishing this academic volume on an almost forgotten genre”- /Western Collectables.“fascinating…rich details…interesting”- Cowboys & Indians.Films discussed are Frontier Marshal (1939), Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die (1942), My Darling Clementine (1946), Gunfight at the O.K. The ways in which Wyatt Earp is presented in each film and this portrayal’s relationship to the period in which the film was made is also examined in detail. The work focuses on the filmmakers’ treatment of the history and the skill with which each balances fact with the necessity of entertainment.
Produced from 1939 to 1994, these movies each use Wyatt Earp and other real-life characters as their sources.
This volume examines eight movie renderings of the legendary gunfight. The following decades produced various renderings of the story, some more historically accurate than others but all with the American flair for entertainment. Corral and its attendant happenings in Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881. As early as 1939 (with the production of Frontier Marshal), moviemakers were recreating the gunfight at the O.K. Hollywood filmmakers were quick to recognize the legend’s attraction-and its potential. Corral irresistible to a great many people. Wyatt Earp, an against-all-odds hero who was literally the last man standing Doc Holliday, Earp’s unlikely crony the tragic tale of the Earp family-all of these elements make the story of the O.K. Corral, 30 seconds found three men dead, left two men wounded and ultimately captured the imagination of generations of Americans.