The 1971 film Doc features Stacy Keach as Doc Holliday working from a script that is riddled with historical inaccuracies, even before the fabled shootout at the OK Corral (in which Morgan Earp and Ike Clanton both die in the gunfire, even though both survived the event). It is still worth the watch, if for nothing else to be able to compare Keach’s performance to other actor’s such as Val Kilmer’s spectacular take on Holliday in Tombstone. The picture is also said to be a favorite of the Coen brothers.
Here is the plot: One night of 1881, Doc Holliday, a famous poker gambler, enters the ‘No Name Saloon’. There, he challenges a man to poker, betting his horse against his opponent’s fiance. Doc wins and from now on, Katie Fisher, also known as Katie Elder, will follow him wherever he goes. Their next destination is Tombstone, where the law is represented by Sheriff Wyatt Earp. When they arrive, the election campaign is in full swing. Earp runs for candidate but the Clantons, a family gang of outlaw cowboys, are not among his keenest supporters. Conflict erupts following the failure of some shadowy bargaining and Doc decides to join Wyatt and his brothers. The four of them gather at the O.K. Corral where the seven Clanton brothers are waiting for them.
Doc won the 1971 Western Writers of America Spur Award for the Best Movie Script by Peter Hamill.
