"Why don't you get out of those stinking saloons? Pack up and go live in the mountains?"
~Wyatt Earp to Doc Holliday, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Much like Doc Holliday in the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, we'll be ignoring Wyatt Earp's advice to leave the saloons this week, instead choosing to linger a while longer as we examine a few cinematic reconstructions of the famous gunfighters' interwoven story.
We'll focus in particular on the role poker plays not only in the shaping — and embellishing — of their characters in these films, but also how the films project an image of 19th-century "saloon poker" to later audiences, exerting an influence on poker's place in the culture well into the 20th century and even today.