REEL LIFE / FILM & VIDEO FILE : Movie Pairs Robber, Rabbi in the Old West : Jewish group will sponsor a showing of ‘Frisco Kid.’ Even the famous Wyatt Earp had ties to the religion.

The United Jewish Appeal of Ventura County is promoting its Saturday screening of “The Frisco Kid” by describing it as a hilarious meeting of the Jewish tradition and the Old West.

The film (7:30 p.m. at the Ventura College theater) is about a Polish rabbi who befriends a bank robber. It sounds like a suitably implausible plot for a comedy, but the funny thing is, there were plenty of Jews in the Wild West.

Even that lately overexposed cinematic character, Wyatt Earp, (“Tombstone” and “Wyatt Earp”) had a Talmudic tie-in. His last wife was Jewish.

“He’s buried in a Jewish cemetery up near San Francisco,” said Richard Erwin, a retired Ventura County public defender and author of a book titled “The Truth About Wyatt Earp.”

The lawman’s final repose is just down from jeans maker Levi Strauss and the ancestors of Barry Goldwater, the former senator from Arizona. Ironically, the grave marker for the Tombstone, Ariz., marshal was often stolen. But after it turned up at a San Jose flea market, it was returned to the cemetery and set flush to the ground in concrete.

Erwin is anxious to see Kevin Costner as the legendary lawman when “Wyatt Earp” is released in the summer. He said he loved “Tombstone,” and pronounced the film historically accurate, except that in Hollywood every six-shooter seems to fire 15 bullets.

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If Wyatt Earp in a Jewish cemetery isn’t enough to demonstrate a blending of cultures, we offer this non-cinematic event: Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks is staging an Old West adaptation of the Purim story, the ancient tale of Jews surviving adversity in Persia.

The musical comedy titled, “The Great Robbery at Greenbaum Gulch,” tells the story of Chief Mor-de-kai, medicine man of the Shushan tribe, who rescues the citizens of the gulch. The play and carnival are scheduled for Feb. 27 at the temple. For more information call 497-7101.

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UCSB has been recognizing Black History Month with a series of documentary shorts on the African American experience.

On Tuesday the series features a profile of Joan Williams, an Oklahoma native who was part of the wartime migration from rural America to the urban manufacturing centers of the North.

Richly illustrated with archival photos, the documentary tells the story of one of the largest internal migrations in American from the perspective of Williams, a 77-year-old powder room attendant in Chicago.

On Feb. 22, the film “Straight Up Rappin’ ” features amateur rappers in New York performing unaccompanied raps about violence, drugs and homelessness. Both screenings will be at the UCSB Multicultural Center, Tuesdays at noon. For more information call 893-8411.