Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (film) Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (film) Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a 1957 American western film starring Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday, loosely based on the actual event which took place on October 26, 1881. The picture was directed by John Sturges from a screenplay written by novelist Leon Uris. The shootout was portrayed in the movie as a protracted, heavily armed firefight that took place at medium range. The actual event began in a narrow wide empty lot between the Harwood house and C. S. Fly's 12-room boarding house and photography studio.
Hour of the Gun not only survives the gunfight, but is a major antagonist thereafter. Where "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" is more about the main gun battle, this film begins with the gunfight and moves forward from there. Because Hal B. Wallis had scripted everything in the earlier "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", Sturges was disappointed with that film. "Hour of the Gun" is more of a psychological "melancholy character study". James Garner also played the lead as Wyatt Earp in a different movie filmed more than two decades later, Blake Edwards's "Sunset" (1988), a comedy thriller based on the 1920s period during