Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 2, 2024

John Sturges' "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957) arrives on 4K Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary by critics C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke and vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

John Sturges’ film retells a legendary story that has been tweaked so many times over the years, it appears that the public’s knowledge of it is permanently altered now. Sturges’ film does a lot of this tweaking too, but is not the worst offender. Indeed, next to bizarre projects like Tombstone Rashomon it feels like an incredibly well-researched documentary because it gets several big details of this story right. Unfortunately, it gets dozens more big and small details wrong, and intentionally, too.

The biggest of these details is the most attractive element of the story, which is the shootout in Tombstone, Arizona. In Sturges’ film, it is an elaborate clash with several dramatic twists and turns. It is why gunfight is prominently placed in its title. The real shootout, however, lasted only about a minute. Sturges’ film also misinterprets how the Clantons behaved before and during the shootout, and produces a wide range of embellishments about Wyatt Earp’s admittedly very odd friendship with Doc Holliday. Needless to say, a lot of what is shown in Sturges’ film is very easy to dismiss.

But does the sum of this revisionism make it just as easy to dismiss everything else in Sturges’ film?

Over the years, serious history buffs have argued that at the very least Sturges’ film should not be referred to as one of the greatest about the shootout. But this is essentially a meaningless critique because it is a very big Hollywood film that unites two iconic stars that will always overshadow the truth, and how much of it is irrelevant. Why exactly? Because for as long as Sturges’ film can be seen, the main attraction in it will be Birt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas’ transformations as Earp and Holliday, respectively, not its depiction of the truth. This is an indisputable fact. It is the very reason every decade produces at least one new film like it, too. The latest crop of stars doing what Lancaster and Douglas did are a much bigger magnet than the latest and possibly most accurate retelling of the legendary story.

Naturally, if its issues with historical accuracy are ignored, Sturges’ film becomes quite easy to like. Indeed, Lancaster and Douglas give predictably strong performances and there are several supporting actors, like Rhonda Fleming, who plays a beautiful lady gambler, that leave lasting impressions as well. So, the buildup to the dramatic finale has plenty of quality material that these types of grand westerns were expected to produce.

Sturges’ film produces predictably great visuals as well. It is not just the action footage that impresses, either. There is a lot of intimate footage, for instance, where the leads are seen contemplating different developments or struggling with feelings and emotions that are wonderful.

Ultimately, the best way to approach Sturges’ film is to do it with the clear understanding that it was meant to be a spectacle first and then everything else. This makes disappointment with it extremely unlikely because the overwhelming majority of these films, when dealing with popular historical events, are doomed to be inaccurate. What separates the great ones from the poor ones is how they manage the inaccurate, and whether in the process they discard the truth. Sturges’ film fits somewhere in the middle. It bends the truth, but not enough to effectively destroy the story it sets out to reconstruct.

Sturges and director of photography Charles Lang shot the bulk of the film in the Old Tucson area. However, several notable sequences were done on the Paramount lot in California, where technicians brilliantly replicated various period structures.

A decade later, Sturges directed Hour of the Gun in which Earp and the Clantons once again clash but under slightly different circumstances. The complete reconstruction of the famous story that this film offers is a lot more accurate.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber's release of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack. The 4K Blu-ray is Region-Free. However, The Blu-ray is Region-A "locked".

Please note that some of the screencaptures that appear with this article are taken from the 4K Blu-ray and downscaled to 1080p. Therefore, they do not accurately reflect the quality of the 4K content on the 4K Blu-ray disc, including the actual color values of this content.

Screencaptures #1-30 are from the Blu-ray.
Screencaptures #33-40 are from the 4K Blu-ray.

The release introduces a new 4K restoration of the film that can be viewed with Dolby Vision and HDR grades. I viewed the entire film with Dolby Vision and then did various comparisons with the 1080p presentation on the Blu-ray release and the 1080p presentation from this Blu-ray release.

I had a very difficult time forming an opinion because the new 4K makeover looks different in native 4K and 1080p, for different reasons, too. For example, in native 4K, the majority of the well-lit close-ups tend to look very good, often even excellent. However, indoor and darker nighttime footage with various darker nuances looks quite different in native 4K and 1080p. In native 4K, some looks good, and some reveals obvious crushing. In 1080p, there is always some light crushing present, though admittedly most of it is easy to ignore. Also, and this is the biggest issue for me, both presentations of the new 4K makeover push primary blue toward turquoise, which unfortunately happens quite often on 4K restorations/remasters that emerge from Paramount. (The most drastic example where blues are actually eliminated is on the recent 4K restoration of Secret of the Incas). Several of the outdoor sequences clearly have a problematic color temperature because of this alteration. You can see examples of the alteration and crushing if you compare this screenshot from the new 4K makeover and this screenshot from the previous Blu-ray release. Also, this discrepancy is not identical when observed in native 4K and 1080p -- I am referring to the old and new 1080p presentations -- which is why some areas look more convincing in native 4K. Nevertheless, it is pretty obvious that primary blue should be a lot more prominent in both presentations of the new 4K makeover. The rest looks either good or very good, though direct comparisons with the previous Blu-ray release do not reveal significant upgrades in terms of delineation, clarity, and depth. As mentioned earlier, while showing some signs of aging now, the previous Blu-ray releases frequently handles darker areas better.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The previous Blu-ray release of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral had only a 5.1 track, so I chose to view the film with the 2.0 track. I thought that it was a solid track, but in several areas I switched to the 5.1 track to compare the action, and it is fair to write that there is a lot to like in both. The dialog is always very easy to follow, clear, and stable.I did not encounter any encoding anomalies to report in our review.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

4K BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by author/screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner and film historian Henry Parke (True West Magazine). I enjoy the contributions Mr. Joyner has made to various releases of cult and classic films, and found his commentary with Mr. Parke predictably informative and entertaining. It covers a wide range of topics, from the production of Gunfight at O.K. Corral to some major discrepancies between the famous story that inspired it and its reconstruction of it. As usual, there is a lot of good information about the people that made the film as well.

BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by author/screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner and film historian Henry Parke (True West Magazine). I enjoy the contributions Mr. Joyner has made to various releases of cult and classic films, and found his commentary with Mr. Parke predictably informative and entertaining. It covers a wide range of topics, from the production of Gunfight at O.K. Corral to some major discrepancies between the famous story that inspired it and its reconstruction of it. As usual, there is a lot of good information about the people that made the film as well.

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage trailer for Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It is true that Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is one of many films that retells the famous story about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and tweaks many big and small details of it to make it appear more dramatic. However, I think that to a certain extent this is unavoidable, and if its issues with historical accuracy are ignored, it is a film that becomes quite easy to like. Kino Lorber's release introduces a new 4K restoration of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. However, I found large parts of it unconvincing. If you are planning to pick it up for your collection, I think that it would be best if you found a way to test it first.