Former buffalo hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita Kansas. His skill as a gun-fighter makes him a perfect candidate for Marshal, but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town.
Direction
Tourneur builds tension like he's personally offended by gunfire
Acting
McCrea's quiet exhaustion rewrites the Earp myth
Writing
Accidental child death as moral catalyst—rarely this unsentimental
Director
Jacques Tourneur
Joel McCrea
Wyatt Earp
Vera Miles
Laurie McCoy
Lloyd Bridges
Gyp Clements
Wallace Ford
Arthur Whiteside
Edgar Buchanan
Doc Black
Peter Graves
Morgan Earp
Keith Larsen
Bat Masterson
Carl Benton Reid
Mayor Andrew Hope
John Smith
Jim Earp
Walter Coy
Sam McCoy
Robert J. Wilke
Ben Thompson
Jack Elam
Al
Mae Clarke
Mrs. McCoy
Walter Sande
Clint Wallace
Robert Anderson
Bank Robber (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Joel McCrea turned down High Noon to make this—he preferred Tourneur's grit to Zinnemann's polish. He was right, fight me.
This was the first Wyatt Earp film after his death in 1929, making it the foundation of his cinematic resurrection. Everything you think you know about Earp starts here, filtered through McCrea's weary decency.
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