DOC

US,1971, 95 minutes, Colour.
Stacy Keach, Faye Dunaway, Harris Yulin.
Directed by Frank Perry.

Doc is in the 1960's-1970's trend of anti-westerns, but takes it a step further with its debunking of heroes Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp as well as Katie Elder. The trend was followed in 1972 with the explanation of Billy the Kid in Dirty Little Billy.

Both films show a very dingy west, sandy, muddy where everyone looks as if they need a good wash. Stacy Keach makes Doc Holliday a puzzle, a gambling gunman who could have been a success. Harris Yulin make Earp a weaker two-timing opportunist who provokes the scruffy Clantons into a victimising gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Many films have focussed on these characters and events - e.g. Ford's My Darling Clementine or John Sturges1 Gunfight at O.K.Corral and Hour of the Gun. This film could be seen in connection with these and many questions asked about the real west and the myths.

This was Frank Perry's first film after he separated from his screenplay writing wife, Eleanor (David and Lisa, The Swimmer, Diary of a Mad Housewife).

1. Was Doc Holliday the central character of the film? Did you know much about Doc Holliday's traditional western reputation?

2. How much did this film debunk Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp and Katie Elder? How well?

3. How much truth was there in the "realism" of the film - the dingy, sandy west the squalor, the gunman-is-right style of life, the local petty politics etc?

4. Did the style of the film and its colour photography reinforce the atmosphere and meaning of the film? How well?

5. What was the mood created by the opening: the sand, dirty and dark saloon, grime, Doc himself, the cards, Katie, lust,, the realities of "human feelings"

6. What kind of man was Doc Holliday presented as - character, flaws, reputation gunman, gambler, how heroic? How ordinary?

7. The impact of the initial desert sequence and the vinegar - its comment on human nature and the west?

8. Wyatt Earp - how was he presented? How differently from his traditional reputation? Has this presentation plausible? What kind of man? His past, his ambitions and manoeuvring for these? His relationship with Doc and his reliance on them?

9. The presentation of the Clantons - typical 'ordinary' western men. Was their position right or wrong? Did the film present them sympathetically?

10. What were your impressions of politics in this part of the west? Was politicking inevitable? Earp, the elections, houses?

11. How did Katie transform Doc's life? How did her relationship with him transform her life? What was wrong with Doc physically and morally? Why could he not settle when all could have been so good? Did the film present well what Doc might have been? Sympathetically?

12. What were your reactions to the deals with the Clantons after the hold-up?

13. What were your reactions to this unglamorous presentation of the gunfight at the O.K.Corral? Was this the real west?

14. Comment on the ending.