The Gunfighters

I have never been much of a fan of Westerns. Whenever I’ve caught a Western film on the television I have always found it to be a curiously soulless and depressing experience, and it’s probably the one genre that I go out of my way to avoid watching. This, as you can imagine, presented something of a challenge when it came to The Gunfighters, but overall I have to admit that I did end up enjoying myself.

I think one of the reasons the story is effective is because there is not much else you can compare it to in the rest of Doctor Who, either as a television series or anything else you care to throw into the ‘canon’, be it audio, novel or otherwise. Historical stories were common enough in the era of the First Doctor it’s true, but rarely did we get one that was a) set outside of the UK, or did not at least involve British characters in some shape or form, of b) was predominantly played for laughs.

Donald Cotton is of course well remembered now as a Doctor Who scribe who often enjoyed playing his subject matter for laughs, and in this respect he seems to have tuned in well with the desires of William Hartnell, who was always keen to bring more humour to the part. Right from the recording of the pilot episode Hartnell was looking for ways in which to soften the character, having had a background in comedy films yet always being frustrated by having to play the straight man. The Gunfighters allows him to cut loose from the slightly gruff image the First Doctor sometimes had in his stories, although it’s fair to say that he always had that humorous spark to him anyway. This story plays that to the full though, and you can tell that Hartnell is having a whale of a time playing the character in that manner, which makes his performance a delight to watch on the screen.

Peter Purves also shows us another side to Steven Taylor in this story, although of course here he’s operating under the slightly ludicrous alias of ‘Steven Regret’. It’s often pointed out that the Doctor never makes it clear really what was wrong with Dodo and Steven’s real names for this story, although the fact that he gives them such larger-than-life monikers is in keeping with the slightly unusual tone of the whole story. Steven singing is a sight to behold, and like Hartnell Purves seems to be enjoying bringing a more light-hearted touch to the series. It has to be said though that after the first couple of episodes, there are so many supporting characters wandering around the place that Cotton seems to pretty much run out of things for Steven to do, and there’s never much for Dodo to do at all. In fact, the whole story probably would have been able to work almost as well had the Doctor landed in Tombstone companionless, although we do at least get to find out that both of his associates are, coincidentally, proficient piano players. Another error Cotton makes, although this is somewhat pickier, is that in the same episode he has the Doctor tell Steven the gun he has is from his “favourite collection”, he says he deplores violence and doesn’t want to use one. It seems somewhat odd that he would collect guns at all, especially when he confesses this distaste for them in the same episode, although I suppose he could collect them just to look at. Seems odd though.

It seems almost a shame to have to mention the American accents of the supporting cast, given that it’s the most obvious thing anyone can ever bring up about this story. It’s such a glaring problem though that it’s impossible to ignore, even for me as a British viewer and thus normally less sensitive to that sort of thing. Even I had to wonder though at the very beginning whether the Clanton brothers were even supposed to have accents, some of which at times sound more Australian or Irish than anything. I suppose given this accent problem it’s actually hard to tell how good the guest cast really are, although none of them stood out for me as being particularly stunning. Apart from Anthony Jacobs, that is, whose performance as Doc Holliday I did enjoy, having the ability as he did to make the character by turns the drunken comic and at other times actually quite serious.

I am aware that the story is based on a rather famous real-life happening, and I am also aware that it is apparently rather creative in its portrayal of said story, but then when has there ever been a Doctor Who historical that let the facts get in the way of spinning a good yarn? I don’t know all the ins and outs of the real life events myself, and I suspect that most of the watching audience in 1966 didn’t either, and at the end of the day suggesting there were a bunch of time travellers in Tombstone at the time already suggests the event is not being rendered with pinpoint accuracy.

Something that is often praised about The Gunfighters if nothing else is the quality of the sets, and I have to say I agree with that assessment. Barry Newbury was always one of the more talented designers the series was blessed with down the years, and his recreation of a Western town within the confines of a BBC television studio is very impressive. Nevertheless, the whole thing inevitably looks a lot more impressive when it’s out on film with more time and space for the shooting – in all senses of the word!

Rex Tucker – the man who was initially chosen to produce Doctor Who before moving on, of course – brings a good eye to the camera, and I was especially taken with the raised camera he has in the bar room scenes throughout the studio videotape material. The ability to look down at the action from above cannot have been easy with the clunky great beasts of cameras they were using at the time, but the effort to achieve such shots is worth it.

The Gunfighters possesses storytelling flair not just in terms of its camerawork, however. There is also the infamous Ballad of the Last Chance saloon, and using music as a narrative device is something very much unique to this story. On paper the idea sounds absurd, but on screen I think the effect is actually quite charming, and I have to confess I rather liked the song anyway. It’s not the sort of thing you’d want the show to do every week, but as a one-off occurrence it was well worth doing and just goes to show that the programme was sometimes capable of using the infinitely flexible premise the fans have always boasted it possesses.

Such an assessment probably covers The Gunfighters overall, in fact. Comedy historicals with linking songs are not the sort of thing you would have wanted Doctor Who to come up with each and every single story, but it’s always nice to get something new and refreshing from time to time, and I think the production team are to be applauded for having made the effort. While what they come up with doesn’t always work perfectly, it’s never less than enjoyable and I wouldn’t wish it out of the history of the series at all.