Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (film) film was nominated for two Academy Awards. 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.
Wyatt Earp City to finish George Hoyt's job, and that they had forced him to back down. Two other accounts contradicted Earp, crediting cattleman Dick McNulty and Long Branch Saloon owner Chalk Beeson with convincing Allison and his cowboys to surrender their guns. Cowboy Charlie Siringo witnessed the incident and left a written account. Wyatt outlived his brothers, and due to the fame Wyatt gained from Lake's biography and later adaptations of it, he is often mistakenly viewed as the central character and hero of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. In fact, Virgil Earp, as Deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone City