Today marks Wyatt Earp's 178th birthday! A legendary lawman and entrepreneur, Earp's reputation has become murky with the passage of time and he has generally been seen as a positive force in Western history due to his portrayal in mass media, while in truth he could rightly deserve detractors as well as admirers.
Stuart Lake's bestselling 1931 biography, Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshall, had much to do with the popularized perception of Earp as a dedicated lawman, and it is this work that forms the basis of the Hallmark Playhouse episode linked below. That book, later to be revealed as highly fictionized and glossing over or ignoring major aspects of Earp's life, was the basis of at least three films (Frontier Marshal, 1934, Frontier Marshal, 1939, My Darling Clementine, 1946), as well as the popular television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955-1961).
So here's Wyatt, without warts, as the fierce and courageous lawman we all want him to be. Richard Conte stars. Also featured were Gerald Mohr and Lurene Tuttle. Noted author James Hilton served the host; Hilton was also the person who selected which stories would be featured on the show.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DE8xAefp2c
I vaguely remember HALLMARK PLAYHOUSE. My age was in the single digits at that time. Today, my wife enjoys the HALLMARK CHANNEL and watches a lot of their romantic movies.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, HALLMARK PLAYHOUSE eventually morphed into THE HALLMARK HALL OF FAME. I was very much in the singles digits (and not that many of them) when WYATT EARP was broadcast, but* that would not have mattered because my family was not into listening to the radio -- with the single exception of weatherman E. B. Rideout's morning weather report on WEEI (I grew up on a farm and Rideout's amazingly accurate daily weather report was considered essential; Rideout was legendary in New england at that time). We did not get a television until I had turned four; the first program we watched? ART LINKLETTER'S HOUSE PARTY. I missed all those nifty radio programs and many of the cool television programs I now feature on this blog.
Delete