SHAKESPEARE

Synopsis

Feature film Western. The story of marshal Wyatt Earp’s fight against the Clanton gang at Tombstone, ending in the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Alan Mowbray plays an inebriate actor who is forced at gunpoint to recite in a saloon for the Clanton gang. When he forgets his words (`to make cowards of us all’ from the Hamlet soliloquy (III i), Victor Mature (the tubercular Doc Holliday), takes over and completes the speech in ending in a fit of coughing.

Language

English

Country

United States

Medium

Film

Technical information

Black-and-white / Sound

Year of release

1948

Duration

96 mins; 8,646 feet

Credits

Director

John Ford

Producer

Samuel G. Engel

Cinematographer

Joseph P. MacDonald

Screenplay

Samuel G. Engel; Winston Miller

Music

Cyril Mockridge; David Buttolph

Cast

Victor Mature	Doc Holliday (Hamlet)
Cathy Downs	Clementine
Henry Fonda	Wyatt Earp
Linda Darnell	Chihuahua
Walter Brennan	Old Man Clanton

Additional Details

Production type

Fiction Films

Plays

Hamlet

Subjects

Drama

Keywords

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); westerns

Notes

Reviews

An analysis of the relationship of Ford’s heroes to Hamlet, stuggling between duty and revenge, is given in H.R. Coursen’s Shakespeare Translated’ : Derivatives on Film and TV (New York: Peter Lang, 2005) p. 66. See also ‘Shakespeare? In Tombstone?' in Scott Simmon The Invention of the Western Film: a Cultural History of the Genre’s First Half-century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). pp 219-33

Production Company

Name

20th Century Fox

Archive

Name

BFI National Archive

Web

http://www.bfi.org.uk/archive-collections/searching-access-collections/research-viewing-services External site opens in new window

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7436 0165

Address

21 Stephen Street
London
W1T 1LN

Distributor (Sale)

Name

Retail outlets