Wichita (1955 film)
| Wichita | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Jacques Tourneur |
| Produced by |
Walter Mirisch Victor Heerman |
| Written by | Daniel B. Ullman |
| Starring |
Joel McCrea Vera Miles Lloyd Bridges |
| Music by | Hans J. Salter |
| Cinematography | Harold Lipstein |
| Edited by | William Austin |
Production company |
Allied Artists Pictures |
| Distributed by | Allied Artists Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 81 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $2.4 million (US)[1] |
Wichita is a 1955 CinemaScope Technicolor Western film directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Joel McCrea as Wyatt Earp. The film won a Golden Globe Award for Best Outdoor Drama. The supporting cast features Vera Miles, Lloyd Bridges, Edgar Buchanan, Peter Graves, Jack Elam and Mae Clarke. The film's premiere was held in Wichita, Kansas, at The Wichita Theatre, 310 East Douglas, with the stars in attendance. Vera Miles had been Miss Kansas in 1948 and was third runner up in the Miss America pageant. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded the film with "Best Picture - Outdoor Drama" in 1955.
It was mostly filmed in California,[2] including in Thousand Oaks, CA.[3]
Synopsis
Former bison hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp (Joel McCrea) arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita, Kansas. His skills as a gunfighter make 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. As with the later film Warlock in 1959, the lawman comes in conflict with his sponsors. His least popular move is to take away the guns of everyone in town, no matter how important. Only when town banker Sam McCoy (Walter Coy) is hit with a personal tragedy does Earp's no-guns edict begin to make sense.[4]
Cast
- Joel McCrea as Wyatt Earp
- Vera Miles as Laurie McCoy
- Lloyd Bridges as Gyp Clements
- Wallace Ford as Arthur Whiteside
- Edgar Buchanan as Doc Black
- Peter Graves as Morgan Earp
- Keith Larsen as Bat Masterson
- Carl Benton Reid as Mayor Andrew Hoke
- John Smith as Jim Earp
- Walter Coy as Sam McCoy
- Robert J. Wilke as Ben Thompson
- Walter Sande as Clint Wallace
- Jack Elam as Al Mann
- Mae Clarke as Mary Elizabeth McCoy
- Sam Peckinpah as bank teller
See also
References
- ↑ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1955', Variety Weekly, January 25, 1956
- ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048806/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt
- ↑ Fujiwara, Chris (2013). Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall. McFarland. Page 308. ISBN 9781476608112.
- ↑ "Wichita (1955) - Jacques Tourneur - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.
External links
- Wichita on IMDb
- Wichita at AllMovie
- Wichita at the TCM Movie Database
- Wichita at the American Film Institute Catalog
- Richard Brody. Movie of the Week: Wichita The New Yorker (Nov. 12, 2014).