Best Westerns: Faye Dunaway

Doc (1971) and Oklahoma Crude (1973

The subject of a new documentary Faye on HBO/Max, Academy Award winning actress Faye Dunaway is best known for a trio of films from 1967–1976: Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown and Network. She was nominated as Best Actress for each and won for Network in 1977. During those years, Dunaway, now 83, also appeared in three Westerns. I take a look back at these dusty oaters.

**Little Big Man (1970)**

Three years after Bonnie and Clyde, Dunaway appeared in another film directed by Arthur Hill. She had the minor role of Louise Pendrake, the frisky wife of minister Silas Pendrake. A 17-year-old Jack (Dustin Hoffman), who was raised by Cheyenne, is sent by the U.S. Calvary to the Pendrakes for foster care. Louise suggestively bathes Jack, kisses him and has sex with a local shop owner, prompting Jack’s departure. Later in the film, she reappears as a prostitute.

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Watch Little Big Man for free at Pluto TV and Sling TV.

**Doc (1971)**

In this Doc Holiday/Wyatt Earp saga directed by Frank Perry and written by Pete Hamill, Dunaway plays saloon girl Katie Elder. In the opening scene, Stacy Keach’s Doc wins her in a card game and together they ride to Tombstone where Doc checks in on Earp (Harris Yulan) and Katie heads back to work at the local brothel.

Earp and his brothers are at war with the Clanton gang and Wyatt asks his good friend, known both as a sharpshooter and dentist, for help. Doc buys a small house and deposits Katie there, where she dreams of having a child. Katie explains:

“See, Doc, I never was ashamed of what I was before, my life then. I liked it, Doc. I liked the money first, but I liked the life most. I didn’t want to be some wife stuck out on the God-dammed prairie coming in at night smelling of sheep, reading the Bible. I wanted the town. I wanted lights, music, dancing. I got ’em and a lot of other things that were bad. After I met you, I didn’t want that life.”

However, Doc, who suffers from tuberculosis, isn’t worth betting on. After a shootout at the O.K. Corral with the Clantons, he hops on his horse and leaves town without saying another word to Katie. What appears to be a cold act is actually intended to allow Katie to return to her chosen life. Love is just not attainable for outlaws — especially sick ones — in the Wild West.

Dunaway took to the role like a pro, all dirty-faced at the start and cleaned up by the end. She showed a profound knowledge of the few options women had in boomtowns like Tombstone.

Other Doc Holiday portrayals include Kirk Douglas (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral), Val Kilmer (Tombstone), Jason Robards (Hour of the Gun) and Dennis Quaid (Wyatt Earp).

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Watch Doc for free on Prime or Tubi.

**Oklahoma Crude (1973)**

Dunaway’s third and final Western, directed by Stanley Kramer, takes place in 1913 in an oil-rich area of Oklahoma. Lena Doyle (Dunaway) has her heart set on scooping up the black crude deposited below a hill on her property. Once she places a derrick there, the Pan Oklahoma Oil & Gas Company offers to buy it. She declines, setting off a Lena vs. Goliath story with Doyle, her father Cleon (John Mills) and itinerant worker Mason (George C. Scott) taking on the hostile competition headed by Walter Hellman (Jack Palance). Despite a gun battle with Lena packing a rifle, it’s all for naught as a gusher doesn’t last and the structure ultimately breaks down.

Playing an early 20th Century feminist, Dunaway’s Lena is a spirited loner who’d rather do things herself until Mason comes along. A romance sparks and they decide to look elsewhere for buried treasure.

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Watch Oklahoma Crude on Tubi.

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• Elvis Presley
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• “Shane”
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