Wichita is a 1955 American CinemaScope 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.

Wichita
Directed byJacques Tourneur
Screenplay byDaniel B. Ullman
Story byDaniel B. Ullman
Produced byWalter Mirisch
Victor Heerman
StarringJoel McCrea
CinematographyHarold Lipstein
Edited byWilliam Austin
Music byHans J. Salter
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Allied Artists Pictures
Distributed byAllied Artists Pictures
Release date
  • July 3, 1955 (1955-07-03)
Running time
81 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$2.4 million (US)[1]

It was mostly filmed in California,[2] including in Thousand Oaks, CA.[3]

Plot

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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. 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

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1955', Variety Weekly, January 25, 1956
  2. ^ "Wichita (1955) - IMDb". IMDb.
  3. ^ Fujiwara, Chris (2013). Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall. McFarland. Page 308. ISBN 9781476608112.
  4. ^ "Wichita (1955) - Jacques Tourneur - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.
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