Long before Dallas had a skyline, a tollway or a single overpriced craft cocktail, it had a dentist named John Henry Holliday. In the 1870s, the man history would remember as “Doc” filled cavities in a young frontier town and, by most accounts, emptied a few bottles along the way. Few people driving down Main Street today know they are retracing the steps of one of the West’s most famous gunslingers. Texas filmmaker Tanner Beard would like to change that.
In 2011, Beard made his first feature, a Western called “The Legend of Hell’s Gate: An American Conspiracy,” which premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival that same year. It was ambitious and personal, and it was among the first Westerns ever shot on the RED ONE digital camera. It was also, in Beard’s view, unfinished. Fifteen years later, he is back in the saddle. The result is “Once Upon a Time in Texas,” a full reimagining that pairs digitally remastered footage from the original shoot with roughly 20 minutes of newly filmed material, a brand-new score, fresh visual effects and a new narrative spine.
That backbone belongs to Isaac McKinnon (Clive Standen), a new character whose search for his long-lost brother carries the story from San Francisco in 1905 back to Texas in 1876. Along the way, history and legend collide as the cast of Lou Taylor Pucci, Eric Balfour and Henry Thomas return in a story that now runs straight through Dallas…