Robert J. Maxwell I missed the beginning but enjoyed what I saw of this film. McCrae is Wyatt Earp, hired by the city fathers to clean up the wild town of Wichita, Kansas. He begins by prohibiting the wearing of guns in the town limits. It gives the city fathers second thoughts because, after all, a cow poke is not a cow poke without an instrument to kill, and Wichita wants the cow pokes to visit and spend their dollars in the saloon and other facilities.Wyatt is joined by his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, and they arrest the most corrupt of the town fathers who, mistaking their identities, tries to hire them to kill Wyatt.Lloyd Bridges is on hand for a final shoot out. Vera Miles is stunning in the way that only a beauty contest winner from a prairie state can be stunning. What do they feed their young girls in Oklahoma -- peaches, corn, and cream? Miles' father objects to the pairing of McCrae and Vera. "You know why, don't you Wyatt?" "Yes, I do." They're talking about the likelihood of Earp's being shot down on the streets, but Dad might have harboring somewhere in the back of his preconscious the realization that McCrae is about one hundred years Miles' senior. McCrae was aging by this time and following the trajectory of other fading actors by appearing in inexpensive Westerns. Even the urbane Ray Milland could be found in boots. But McCrae seems to have been a genuinely nice guy, so he's acceptable in the role. It was directed efficiently but without poetry by Jacques Tourneur, of all people. The script leaves the some of the heavies just enough humanity to raise this above the usual Manichean Western that divides people into pure good and pure evil.It's ironic that the audience watching this on television will root for, and applaud, Wyatt Earp in his attempt to bring peace to the town by forbidding the wearing of guns -- ironic because the most powerful gun lobby in Washington has just successfully argued that the best way to prevent regular shoot outs like Wichita's is to arm everyone with guns, including school teachers.

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) The people of Wichita want it to become a boom town, a place to sell cattle, served by the railroad, and where the cowboys come to spend their money in the saloons. So what is the last thing they should do? To make Wyatt Earp the Marshal. But that is exactly what they end up doing when the cowboys get too drunk, start shooting aimlessly and kill a boy (named Michael Jackson!!) Wyatt(Joel McCrea) arrests some of them and forbids the use of firearms. Bat Masterson is also there to help him. Jacques Tourneur knew how to give an extra touch to what could be an average western, which also has some remarkable actors like Lloyd Bridges, Edgar Buchanan and the eternal bad guy, Jack Elam. There is a great scene when Wyatt first shows up, almost a dot at the top of the hill. A western worth seeing.

ma-cortes The film was well developed in Wichita where appeared Wyatt Earp (Joel McCrea) as one of the many lawman hired to keep the peace . Wyatt Earp was a gunman and sometime peace officer whose legendary reputation as a paragon of law and order was largely manufactured by himself and his biographer Stuart Lake . Undoubtedly he was also a man of great courage and gunfighting skill . After working as a freighter and buffalo hunter Earp served as a policeman in Wichita (during 1875-76 years) and then as an assistant town marshal of Dodge city . Wichita was a major cattle town that started life as a trading post for the Indians who had a village nearby and later a white settlement developed around . The town was incorporated as a third class city in 1871, and the following year , when the railroad reached the location , it becomes a booming railhead of the cattle drives from Texas up the Chisholm trail . Like other cattle towns (Abilene) the rowdy , free-spending cowboys attracted saloon keepers , gambling houses , brothels , dance houses and all types of frontier riff-raff , the city became notorious for its lawlessness and vice , serving the needs of Texas cowboys . Wichita was the leading cattle shipping center , with 200.000 cattle and 2.000 cowboys flooding into the area at the height of the station . At the movie the cowboys (such as Robert J.Wilke and Jack Elam) amuse themselves shooting the air and is when Wyatt Earp intervenes to keep the order . He is helped by his brothers James (John Smith) and Morgan (Peter Graves) who was badly wounded in the explosive showdown known as the Gunfight at the O.K .Corral (26 October 1881) . At the film appears Bat Masterson (Keith Larsen) working as a journalist . Bat was also a peace officer and gunfighter of legendary reputation as Earp and spent the last twenty years of his life as a popular sports writer on a New York newspaper , moving on to Dodge City , he served as a police officer and became a comrade of Wyatt . The motion picture develops pretty well the events around Wichita . The casting is frankly magnificent as the main characters (Joel McCrea , Vera Miles) as well as the excellent supporting actors (Edgar Buchanan , Lloyd Bridges , Wallace Ford and Sam Peckinpah plays a bit part as a bank teller). The picture was well directed by Jacques Tourneur . Rating : Good Western , well worth watching .

Ilya Mauter Wichita is a western that again focuses on a life and deeds of legendary Wyatt Earp, only this time without gunfight at the OK Corral. The action doesn't take place at Tombstone, but in a small cattle town of Wichita where our hero (this time played by Joel McCrea) arrives and very soon is offered a post of a Marshall due to his strong persona and skills in using the gun.In a very short time he manages to change completely the life of the town from a very dangerous place where one could be killed or robbed at any moment to the most peaceful town in the wild west.An interesting western directed by Jacques Tourneur, that revisits some of the used western's cliches, but also contains some spectacular action sequences and some personal Tourneur touches in directing which rise the film little above the average and turn it into a pleasurable viewing experience. 7/10