‘Doc’ *** (1971, Stacy Keach, Faye Dunaway, Harris Yulin) – Classic Movie Review 8726

The late, lamented, highly talented director Frank Perry (David and Lisa, Diary of a Mad Housewife) turns his hand to the 1971 ‘Doc’, a useful spaghetti Western about sharp-shooting poker gambler Doc Holliday (Stacy Keach), his friend Marshal Wyatt Earp (Harris Yulin), and Kate Elder (Faye Dunaway). Doc and Earp of course have to battle the Clanton gang in Tombstone, Arizona.

Perry is after a tough, realistic picture of the West and its heroes, and a fresh exploration of the personal conflicts. An unheroic picture of the heroes sees an effete Earp getting badly beaten and Doc severely sick with coughing bouts. If the result is even further from the truth than the Gunfight at the OK Corral legend, it is still an intriguing, carefully made, effective movie, with all three stars excelling. Almeria, Spain, stands in for Tombstone, Arizona.

The writer is Pete Hamill and it is Perry’s first film not scripted by his wife Eleanor Perry, whom he divorced in 1970.

Also in the cast are Michael Witney as Ike Clanton, Denver John Collins, Dan Greenburg, Penelope Allen, Hedy Sontag, Bruce M Fischer, James Green, Richard McKenzie, John Scanlon, Antonia Rey, John Bottoms as Virgil Earp and Philip Shafer as Morgan Earp.

UK versions are cut by five seconds to remove a cockfight scene.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8726

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