If you ever get a chance to see The Gunfighter with Gregory Peck, you should do so.
It’s based loosely on the career of John (Johnny) Ringo, who was allied with the Clantons and McLaurys at the OK Corral. He was not a nice person, but neither was he the psycho preternatural super-killer so wonderfully depicted by Michael Biehn in 1993’s Tombstone. He was something in-between, an acquaintance of the “bad guys,” a gun hand who happened to be there and managed to survive.
The movie imagines an archetypal gunfighter only loosely based on the historical Ringo (in fact, the name John is changed to Jim, apparently to emphasize the fictional liberties).
Everything about this movie works. It’s a sterling example of perfect plotting, perfect character development, perfect staging, perfect black and white cinematography — whatever you can think of, this movie does it perfectly.
I would say it’s one of the three best things Peck ever did. The other two would be To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve O’Clock High. The latter movie was directed by Henry King, who also did this one. Twelve O’Clock High is probably the most perfect World War II movie ever made, so Henry King is a genius in my book.
Long story short: see this somehow. It’s as good as movies get.
Doh. Correction: I don’t think Ringo was directly involved in the OK Corral gunfight. He was, however, on just about every other occasion antagonistic toward the Earps and Doc Holliday. The movie Tombstone imagines a private gunfight between Holliday and Ringo. This never quite came off. In real life, they were arrested before they could shoot each other. Also in real life, Doc Holliday was probably a more horrible person than Ringo.
I dunno man. I watched Jurassic World last weekend, and it was pretty good.