One of my favorite directors -- and even a friend in his last years -- and one of my favorite actors make a good team. But they were hampered from the start with a script based so loosely on history -- based, in fact, loosely even on the fairy tale that Stuart Lake wrote after listening to the fairy tale told him by Wyatt Earp himself.
Some of Hollywood's finest actors make up this extraordinary cast, but I think the adorable Binnie Barnes stole the acting honors. What a talent! From this brassy Yankee city girl to so many other and softer roles, she could do everything.
Eddie Foy, Jr., playing his dad, strikes me as one of Hollywood's greatest casting coups. Cesar Romero made an excellent caricature of Doc Holliday -- a dentist, by the way, not a physician, and from Georgia, not Illinois.
Ward Bond was in two versions of the Wyatt Earp myth, and I wonder if anybody else was. But Bond was always an astonishing talent, even from his earliest days. One of the greatest.
(((Added 12 August 2020: Turns out Charles Stevens was in at least three versions of the Wyatt Earp story. And he too was a fine actor, with a longer career than most people realize.)))
OK, forget this is very silly and highly fictionalized fake history and it's one great Western. Randolph Scott more than makes up for the script, and Allan Dwan gave one of his best efforts -- among many very great efforts -- directing a superlative cast.
There is a damaged version of "Frontier Marshal" at YouTube and, if you bear in mind this is total fiction -- except there really was a Tombstone, and still is -- this is an enjoyable movie.
Some of Hollywood's finest actors make up this extraordinary cast, but I think the adorable Binnie Barnes stole the acting honors. What a talent! From this brassy Yankee city girl to so many other and softer roles, she could do everything.
Eddie Foy, Jr., playing his dad, strikes me as one of Hollywood's greatest casting coups. Cesar Romero made an excellent caricature of Doc Holliday -- a dentist, by the way, not a physician, and from Georgia, not Illinois.
Ward Bond was in two versions of the Wyatt Earp myth, and I wonder if anybody else was. But Bond was always an astonishing talent, even from his earliest days. One of the greatest.
(((Added 12 August 2020: Turns out Charles Stevens was in at least three versions of the Wyatt Earp story. And he too was a fine actor, with a longer career than most people realize.)))
OK, forget this is very silly and highly fictionalized fake history and it's one great Western. Randolph Scott more than makes up for the script, and Allan Dwan gave one of his best efforts -- among many very great efforts -- directing a superlative cast.
There is a damaged version of "Frontier Marshal" at YouTube and, if you bear in mind this is total fiction -- except there really was a Tombstone, and still is -- this is an enjoyable movie.