It’s not immediately obvious why Paramount should have chosen to make Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in VistaVision. True, the studio was pushing its new format in a variety of genres, especially in musicals and adventure films, and had already made several Westerns in VistaVision, including The Far Horizons and Nicholas Ray’s Run for Cover. It’s also the case that director John Sturges already had experience of the widescreen format in the genre, having shot the modern-day Western Bad Day at Black Rock in CinemaScope. The logic of shooting Westerns in widescreen is presumably that it will enhance the beauty of the landscape, usually one of the prime sources of the genre’s appeal. However, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place almost entirely indoors, in smoke-filled saloons, dingy hotel rooms and jails. Although from time to time there are brief excursions outside, into a wintry, leafless and arid landscape, even some scenes that are supposed to be outdoors (as when Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday defeat an attempted ambush at their camp-site) are clearly shot on the studio backlot. The climactic gunfight is technically outdoors, but it’s not the wide-open spaces that Sturges emphasises but the tightness and narrow confines of the available space. Still, indoors or out, the film, photographed by the excellent Charles B. Lang, always looks good.
Ed Buscombe