Plot: Retired, yet still famous, lawman Wyatt Earp arrives in Tombstone, Arizona planning to join his brothers in building a new life as private citizens. Unfortunately, the life of peaceful businessmen isn't in the cards for the Earp boys. A group of cattle rustlers, murderers, and general all-round bad guys known as 'The Cowboys' control Tombstone, terrorizing the citizens and even the local law. The longer they try to remain aloof, the more the Earps find their consciences bothered by the lawlessness they see around them. Once they decide to take action, a showdown between the two groups becomes inevitable.
Comment: WARNING: Spoilers Included
Review: On the morning of Oct 23, 1881 a life long friend of Wyatt Earp name George Parsons wrote in his journal: "Quiet as usual today. Read up my papers and ate my bread and bacon with usual composure. Nothing new yet in these parts. Rather monotonous. I hope this state of affairs won't continue long." He was to get his wish three days later when the infamous Gunfight at the OK Corral turned a smoldering conflict between the Earps and the Clantons into all out warfare. This movie claims to tell the story of the Gunfight and it does a fair job of doing so ... at least, it tells the Earp side of the story. While not entirely unbiased, it's a great western. It does a better job than some versions of the story, although it's still pretty far off the mark in its details. But what a cast!
Originally, Kevin Jarre (who wrote the script for Glory as well as Tombstone) was intended to make his directorial debut with this film. A month into the making of the film he was fired and replaced with Rambo's George P. Cosmatos, which may account for some of the gratuitous violence, especially in the latter half of the movie. Had Jarre been left in charge, we might have been treated to a stronger Western character study. As it turned out, the film becomes a bit muddled between the characters and the action.
This isn't to say I dislike this movie. On the contrary, I enjoyed it quite a bit, especially Val Kilmer's brilliant turn as, perhaps, the penultimate Doc Holliday (not to mention, he has some of the best lines in any Hollywood movie ever!), and Michael's Biehn's fine portrayal of his Cowboy counterpart, Johnny Ringo. But my job here isn't to rave about the fun aspects of a film and ignore the flaws—in particular, this movie that purports to convey actual history. So, for the most part, I'll leave critiquing the movie's entertainment value to Eilis and concentrate on some aspects of Hollywood's Version of History compared to the 'True History'.
I'm comparatively well versed in the historical story of the Earps in Tombstone—at least as far as one can be with such a polarizing segment of American history. Even today, there are people from Tombstone who say the Earps weren't the heroes they were later romanticized to be...nor were the Clantons the cowardly, mustache twirling villians of the movies. So, with that proviso in mind, I can say this film does present the basics. As with the best of Hollywood's historical movies, however, they've been dressed up, romanticized and condensed. The real story was much more complex than what we see onscreen. And it's in simplifying those complications that 'right' is shifted from a matter of opinion into Hollywood's storytelling clarity.
Sometimes, dramatic appeal requires the writers to attribute the actions of one real life person to a different character in the movie—like the fact attempting to disarm the Cowboys at the OK Corral might lead to violence was actually Sheriff Behan's suggestion, not Wyatt's. The writers needed Wyatt to say this, however, so that Behan remains a semi-bad guy and Wyatt appears even more noble. Some facts have been compressed or combined for the sake of storytelling efficiency—like the fact this wasn't Josephine's first visit to Tombstone and she wasn't an actress anymore at this time. In fact, she was arriving to marry Johnny Behan. Okay, no real problem there. We can do without all that additional information without harming the history. And since she and Wyatt did end up falling in love and getting married, the condensed romantic subplot works for me.
The tweaking of character, however, is the one factor of Hollywood script writing that I find irritating in historical movies. For example, Wyatt wasn't opposed to being a lawman in Tombstone. Actually, he was planning to run against Behan for county sheriff in the next election. To portray him as the reluctant hero dragged into a nasty situation is just ... wrong. Who knows? Wyatt may have been noble and he may have preferred non-violence—not always possible in the Old West. The record seems to hold mention of him 'buffaloing' (hitting over the head with the butt of a gun) people more often than shooting them. But he also seems to have had a very definite sense of, if not justice at least action. Wyatt was no bystander by nature.
On the other side of that coin, though, there are touches that seem to be pure Hollywood, but interestingly enough, aren't. The scene on the porch of what was in reality the local courthouse in which Wyatt 'buffaloes' and disarms Tom MacLaury really happened. According to some sources, the vendetta scene in which Wyatt fords the stream on foot while cowboys shoot at him and miss actually happened, too. (In reality, Wyatt Earp was a lawman for over ten years and he was never once shot.)
But back to what we were discussing. Some facts have been twisted to make the Clantons look 'badder' and the Earps look 'gooder'. We see this in the opening monologue, voiced by Robert Mitchum, in which we are informed that the Cowboys were over 100 exiled Texas outlaws that emerge as the earliest example of organized crime in America. But is this true? We can really only speculate. The historical records show that the Cowboys were cattle rustlers who stole livestock in Mexico, which they herded north to Arizona and sold there on the cheap. In fact, it was suspicions about this that caused Virgil Earp (as town marshall) to first come into conflict with the Clantons and MacLaurys.
Curly Bill Brocius actually did shoot Sheriff White (who was only 31 and not the old man depicted in the movie) in the manner shown, but during his trial, he claimed he was handing over his guns when one of them went off by accident. Given the fact Sheriff White survived for two days and reported that he thought the gun went off by accident, Brocius was acquitted of the charges. There were historical reports of Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo committing murders for revenge and atrocities while cattle rustling in Mexico, but no charges were filed at the time and, therefore, there's no evidence to go on other than rumors of the day. Even Billy Breakenridge in his book Helldorado reports that, when drunk, Curly Bill was known for his mean sense of humor, "...and for such 'practical jokes' as using gunfire to make a preacher 'dance' during a sermon, or making Mexicans at a community dance take off their clothes and dance naked..." So, were they the cold-blooded killers shown in the movie? Depends on which side you listen to.
We could go on and on about the questionable differences in the actual record and the movie version, but if we did, this review might turn into a book. The fact is, the liberties taken are all part and parcel of storytelling. What really happened? If you start trying to hunt down the 'real' history of Tombstone and the Gunfight at the OK Corral, you could go crazy. Hoaxes (also known as bragging and tall-tale telling) abound. Everyone told the stories from their side's point of view...and everyone seems to have had a side, even the newspapers. (The famous Tombstone Epitaph was pro-Earp and not the only paper in town.) This makes the task of digging out the real truth about the American West next to impossible sometimes. To this day, there are two opposing factions with regard to this chapter of American history, and each of them is equally as vocal as the other. It's just the Earp side of the story has the media platform provided by Hollywood via countless movies.
Odd Are Berkaak of Norway has been trying to pin down the truth for years now. He might actually have pinpointed the middle ground where the truth lies, too. Raised on stories of the Earps, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons (which he says he and his friends knew before learning about the Vikings), he believes the stories of Tombstone aren't solely American culture, but global culture. He calls Tombstone a re-run of the Civil War ... a minature version of what was happening in America at the time. The Cowboys were the local farmers, demobilized soldiers that had drifted west from Texas in search of farmland. According to his theory, they were the agricultural Southern Democrats fighting for self-determination. The Earps represented the industrial North, mining and banking ... and government (law). The Gunfight at the OK Corral was the visible manifestation of this conflict. He could be right. The Clanton family today would like to see a new telling of the old story from the other side's point of view. Not likely to happen, given Wyatt Earp is a national hero now, but if approached in light of Berkaak's theory, it could be interesting.
Knowing this is a dramatization and facts will be tinkered with, there was only one scene I took particular exception to in this movie, and my complaint is minor. For visual effect, the filmmakers set a building on fire behind the Earps and Holliday as they made the long muted walk to the OK Corral. A fire? Okay, yes, it looks spectacular and provides some nice symbolism, but in a town that was built, burned to the ground, rebuilt, burned to the ground a second time, and re-rebuilt, I don't think anyone would ignore a building on fire. Oh, and just so you know, the gunfight in the movie lasts three times as long as the real one did.
One of the things I really liked about this movie version was the fact the Earps aren't portrayed as noble to the end. The last third of the movie covers Wyatt's attempts to hunt down the Cowboys and it's obvious he doesn't plan to arrest them. "If I see a red sash, I kill the man who's wearing it!" The writers could have succumbed to the temptation of making this episode in Wyatt's life the pursuit of justice, but they don't. As Doc Holliday tells their companions, "Oh, make no mistake, it's not justice he's after...it's a reckoning." If that doesn't make it clear that this was a vendetta for Morgan's death and Virgil's maiming, nothing does.
So, who fired first? Does it matter now? The question is did the events portrayed in Tombstone actually happen? Yes, they did. Did they happen that way? Yeah, pretty much. Were the motivations of the principles those depicted? Probably not. At least not entirely. The Earps are portrayed a bit more gallant and noble than they probably were. The Cowboys are portrayed quite a bit more evil and amoral than they really were. But then it's a movie—and a classic western, at that. We have to be able to tell the good guys from the bad. Right?
