The debate between Wyatt Earp (1994) and Tombstone (1993)

Which of the two is more accurate?

This is a question that I’ve seen asked over and over for many years on discussion boards and on Facebook. I used to see the question asked regularly on the IMDb message boards while they were still active. Unfortunately, the discussion never really involves any real logical debate but instead it’s usually just casting a vote for a person’s preference. And of course there is nothing wrong with whatever a person prefers, they’re both good movies with good qualities, but when we present the question and hinge it on the element of accuracy, are we really answering the question?

The first thing that should be understood is that you’re not comparing two movies of the same topic, though at first glance it’s understandable why the comparison is made. This is usually the first mistake when people want to debate this. Tombstone is a movie about the town of Tombstone and the troubles it had from its boom in 1879 to the relative end of the cowboy threat in 1882. Wyatt Earp, on the other hand, is a story about an individual who lived in the Old West and played a key role in several events of that time. So, right off the bat, we have to be clear in understanding that one movie is about a place, a town, a community, and a series of events; while the other is about a man and the study of his life and personal timeline.

Obviously, Wyatt Earp is central to the telling of his own story, so of course it makes sense that he is front and center. Wyatt arrived in Tombstone with his brother Virgil in 1879, and was key in many of the events that transpired there involving the Cowboys and general outlawry. He is a natural key element of that saga, as well, but we have to be discerning and recognize that while the Wyatt Earp movie is about Wyatt Earp, the Tombstone movie is about many people, Wyatt just being one of them. So with the Wyatt Earp movie we need elements pertinent to Wyatt Earp’s life, and in Tombstone the key is to have elements that are pertinent to the town…not necessarily to Wyatt Earp, the man.

One of the common complaints I hear about Tombstone from those who prefer Wyatt Earp is that Tombstone did not feature Warren and James, the other two Earp brothers. And one of the common complaints about the movie Wyatt Earp, from those who prefer Tombstone, is that the Tombstone outlaws, such as Curly Bill and especially Johnny Ringo, hardly get any consideration and are merely background characters. These are certainly legitimate and noticeable absences, but at the same time there is some valid reason for these varying approaches.

In the movie Tombstone, remembering that the movie is not about Wyatt but about the town and the cowboy troubles, Warren and James did not play significant roles. James was present tending bar at Vogan’s bowling alley, but he was not a combatant, and very rarely was ever involved in the heated troubles. Warren was involved a bit towards the latter part of the Earps time in town, and was a part of the vendetta ride, but he wasn’t present for a lot of the troubles, and most significantly he was not in town when the street fight happened.

Then when we look at the movie Wyatt Earp we see that we get healthy doses of both Warren and James, but we don’t get much understanding of Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo and the rest of the Arizona outlaws. We get the gunfight at the OK corral, as it’s called, but yet we don’t get the same background that we do from Tombstone, and to some this is a big disappointment.

When we keep in mind what each movie is trying to focus on, then we can better understand what is brought into focus on the screen, as well as why it’s really a fool’s errand to try to compare accuracy. Looking first at Tombstone, and the issue of being short a couple of brothers, we have to understand that the writer and director have a limited amount of time to present all the important elements that existed. If they were to tell the story of Tombstone and not give the audience a great understanding, and a well-rounded picture of characters like Curly Bill Brocious and Johnny Ringo, then we’d be shortchanged. These fellas were extremely key to everything that happened in Tombstone at that time. The Earp brothers Warren and James, while in town and close with Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan, were not key to the events as they transpired. Essentially, one has to act ask, does the absence of James and Warren compromise the understanding of the Tombstone troubles? Clearly the answer is: it does not. The story can still be told, and understood, without getting into Warren and James’ presence in town.

With Wyatt Earp we have the scope of 80 years centralized on one man’s life. The gunfight at the OK corral is very important in understanding Wyatt Earp, but the involvements of Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo, and their thieving activities, is not as crucial to understanding Wyatt Earp as it is to understanding the town of Tombstone in the early 1880s. I think it would be great if we could have more fleshing out of the Arizona outlaws, but I understand them not being a central focus in a story about Wyatt Earp when family was so important to him. We needed James and Warren in the movie Wyatt Earp more than we did in Tombstone, because in this study of the man we get a better picture of his relationship with his brothers and family, in general.

I use the example of the brothers involvement in Wyatt Earp, and the outlaws involvement in Tombstone to underscore the fact that these movies can’t be compared one-to-one. Wyatt Earp contains so much more time that it will naturally involve many elements that don’t have any place in the movie Tombstone, and the movie Tombstone is such an acute focus on such a short period of time and such a relatively small location, that it naturally would not include elements that are not germane to the story. This principle applies to more than just this sample, but can be used when looking at many of the two movies differences.

Each movie has a lot of great qualities, and any fan of the Old West, and especially of Wyatt Earp and the Tombstone saga, has a lot to enjoy from both movies, but when comparing the two, the comparisons should be based around personal enjoyment and the elicited emotional response; not the accuracy of two things with an inconsistent tether.

Prelude to a Travesty

Taking a look at the day leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral

While the gunfight itself gets plenty of scrutinizing, the events beforehand, and after, are often viewed with significantly less interest. In order to fully understand the gunfight, both should be given their own consideration. So in this post I want to lay out an easy-to-read rundown of what happened in the build up to the OK Corral Gunfight. I won’t be getting into all the nuance and contextual framing of every little tidbit (those kind of items usually warrant their own write-up when significant enough), but I do want to paint a picture here that frames the big showdown in the light of what was going on beforehand.

The immediate trouble began brewing the night before when Ike and Doc confronted each other over whether or not Doc had been clued in to a secret deal between Wyatt and Ike. The yelling became intense, as did the insults, and finally Virgil had to break it up; but not before Morgan got involved and increased Ike’s feeling of victimhood.

Eventually Wyatt headed home, but Ike caught up to him and told him there would be a fight coming. Wyatt responded by telling him that if there wasn’t any money to be made, then he wasn’t interested. This same threat from Ike was repeated to Virgil on his way home, but it came after a long evening of gambling between Virgil, Ike, Tom McLaury, John Clum, and Johnny Behan. Virgil dismissed Ike and proceeded to bed, while Ike proceeded to prolong his evening of miscreance.

Around 9am Virgil was awoken by deputy Bronk, letting him know that Ike Clanton was storming around town with a rifle letting everyone know that he was looking for the Earps. It’s been widely accepted that Ike was drunk and had been up all night drinking and gambling, but lately some have made the argument that there has been no testimony to Ike’s state of inebriation. While it’s true that we have no one on record declaring Ike as drunk, it’s hardly the behavior of a sober man to stay up all night and spend his morning with a loaded weapon telling townspeople how he intends to shoot it out with the local lawmen. So most likely the lack of an official statement on Ike’s inebriated state is due to the fact that no one ever felt that it needed stating.

The first sightings of Ike on his morning sojourn were Boyle at his saloon, telling Ike to put away his gun or he was going to be in trouble, and about the same time, Mrs. Fly reporting he had stormed into Fly’s Boarding House looking for Doc. Still armed, of course.

Eventually Virgil made his appearance on the streets and immediately began fielding reports of Ike’s behavior. It seemed that Ike had made no intention to camouflage his attack, as everyone in town seemed to be aware that trouble was brewing. When Virgil finally found Ike, he was, sure enough, stalking the streets with gun in hand. Virgil caught up to him and struck him upon the head with the butt of his gun, a move referred to as “buffaloing”, and then removed his rifle and dragged him to the courthouse to be fined for his unlawful behavior.

In the courtroom, while waiting for the justice to show up and assess the fine, Ike continued his bluster, stating he only needed “four feet of ground”. Wyatt and Morgan were feeling fed up with Ike’s antagonism and called him out on his claims. Before things could erupt, however, Justice Wallace ordered the participants, Wyatt and Morgan included, to settle down or he would fine them all.

Shortly after, Wyatt encountered Tom McLaury on the street. Words were exchanged and Tom was swiftly buffaloed by the increasingly impatient Wyatt. As he stormed off, some testified that Wyatt was grumbling how he would be justified in shooting Tom and not just knocking him down. Some witnesses to the event felt that Wyatt was being a bit savage, but others felt he exercised great restraint in only subduing Tom McLaury, as opposed to resorting to gunplay.

Things quieted down momentarily and the Earps and Cow-Boys stayed away from each other. But once Frank McLaury (older brother to Tom), and Billy Clanton (younger brother to Ike), showed up in town things began to boil once again. Frank was just checking into the Grand Hotel, which was a cow-boy hot spot, when Billy Claiborne caught up to him and told him about how Wyatt had struck Tom down. Frank was confused about the actions and reportedly said that he was going to get the boys out of town right away. However, it is important to note that the only testimony to Franks intent to quickly leave town was from one of the cow-boy cohorts, and given his refusal to surrender his guns and hanging around for quite a while, it could be questioned if he ever really was in a hurry to get going.

Curiously, and perhaps innocently, perhaps not, quickly getting out of town meant all of the cow-boys stopping in at Spangenberg’s gun shop to load up on ammunition. This in itself is absolutely fine, but given the context it was, at best, a very unfortunate and misguided pit stop. But what happened next possibly serves to show the cow-boys intent to antagonize and Wyatt’s intent to stand up to the law-breakers regardless of the danger involved.

Frank McLaury, when entering the gun shop, had decided to bring his horse with him. This was, of course, against the law, and immediately caught the attention of Wyatt, who had already been keeping an eye on the miscreants. With no back up, and apparently no concern for his safety, he walked right up to the cow-boy horse, whose owner, keep in mind, was inside the store loading his gun, and grabbed him by the reins and walked him down off the sidewalk. Frank McLaury came out of the store, protesting Wyatt’s seizure of his horse, who then followed up by scolding him for his carelessness with his equine friend.

Wyatt walked away, but only after surely making an impression that the cow-boys weren’t going to have their run of the town that day.

The Earp brothers eventually wound up at the corner of fourth and Allen, standing around in front of Hafford’s saloon where they could keep a loose eye on the cow-boys movements. It was then that Johnny Behan, the county sheriff, inserted himself into the day’s drama. Having been told of the building tensions around town while getting his daily shave, he wrapped up and found the Earp boys congregated on the corner. He approached Virgil Earp, which would be the natural process as he was the City Marshal and the violations of law were under his purview. Virgil then updated Behan on his personal perspective of things, essentially that there was a growing number of cow-boys in town, centering on Ike, who had been making threats throughout most of the day. He went on to clarify that all he wanted was for the cow-boy crowd to put up their arms while they were in town, or, in lieu of that, leaving town.

Johnny departed the bunch and headed to find the Clanton’s and McLaury’s with the high-minded notion of settling the whole affair and preventing any real harm. While he was off doing that, however, Virgil continued to be approached by towns people either admonishing him to do his job and put a stop to the cow-boys defiance of local laws, or to offer him support in arresting audacious law-breakers. The fact of it was, though, that Virgil was in a tight spot. They sincerely looked as though they may be heading out of town, but they weren’t doing a very swift job of it, and could likewise be seen as flaunting their disregard for the town’s pursuit of order.

It was after the cow-boys had loaded up on ammo and weapons at Spangenberg’s that they headed into the Corral on Allen street, between 3rd and 4th, (and partly owned by and Johnny Behan), in order to retrieve their horses. This certainly forwarded the idea that they were about to leave town, as Virgil and his brothers waited up the road. Doc Holliday had come to join the family gathering and felt it was his duty to support the brothers that he considered friends. Some have considered it an unwise decision for Virgil to recruit Doc, but when facing men with guns who are threatening your lives, it’s good to have someone who is determined to be at your side; it’s reasonable to believe they’ll prove more reliable than anonymous vigilance committee members.

Eventually Virgil grew tired of waiting. He had recently been informed, by one of many townspeople who felt it was their duty to report to the City Marshal everything the “bad guys” were doing, that they had relocated to an empty lot behind the OK Corral. At first he said that as long as they stayed there and didn’t come out on the streets then he would not approach them, but as they lingered for too long, Virgil decided it was time to act and end the nonsense.

It’s also important to be aware that the place the cow-boys were congregated was just outside the door of where Doc Holliday was rooming. Given that Ike had been there earlier in the day looking for Doc, with violence ‘a forethought, it doesn’t help the cow-boy case that they chose to make a prolonged pitstop at the place he was presently calling home. It seems unlikely that they would have been trying a hit on the dentist at this point in time, as so many people had their eyes attuned to the unfolding drama, but it could be that they simply wanted to harass and antagonize. Regardless, the question has to be asked, why did they not stay in the OK Corral alley where they would have been legal to wait? Why did they make a point to move to where Ike had previously advertised his wrath? No one knows for sure, but it augured ill for the Clanton’s and McLaury’s.

Back up the block on Freemont and around the corner on 4th, Virgil decided the waiting was over. The cow-boys had been given enough time, and Behan had been allowed enough opportunity to produce a result. With reports of the outlaws still wearing their guns and milling about down by the photo studio, Virgil led his specially appointed posse towards history.

After turning left from fourth street on to Freemont, Behan spotted the city lawmen approaching. He left Frank McLaury in the lot where he had refused to surrender his guns and demanded first that the lawmen give up their guns. Apparently not wishing to explain to Frank the stark silliness and illogical standing of his demand, he turned to cut off the Earp party before they reached Fly’s. Attempting to give them pause he warned them that if they continued they would be murdered. When that didn’t break their stride he took a chance on an intentional lie and called out that he had already disarmed the men. This statement caused the lawmen to then ease up on their pistol grips and relax a bit, not realizing that Behan had exaggerated his accomplishments for the sake of hoping to prevent an outburst.

One they arrived, Billy Claiborne and Wes Fuller, who were part of the outlaw contingent that had joined up with the cow-boy party, fled the area, and Behan ducked inside Fly’s. What happened next was the most famous gunfight in probably all of American history. When all the events of the day are recounted, it’s easy to see why such an explosion was nearly inevitable.

O.K. Corral Inquest & Trial Breakdown

I’ve put together a breakdown of pretty much everything that happened immediately after the Tombstone street-fight, up to the end of the trial a little over a month following the skirmish. I tried to do it in a simple and straight-forward way that makes it easy to look in at a certain moment in the process and get an idea of what was going on, while being contained in a more macro view that makes it possible to get the big picture without having to adjust your goggles too much. The pages can each be found in the dropdown menu under Old West Fundamentals, as well as from the links listed below. I hope this info helps as many people as possible; I know it helped me to get all this straight in my head and to be able to study the original statements.

 

The principle characters involved on the day of Oct. 26th, 1881

List of characters involved in the Coroner’s Inquest

Sequence of Inquest testimony, as well as linked original transcripts

List of key characters involved in the Spicer Hearing (trial following the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral)

Sequence of Spicer Hearing testimony and subsequent ruling by Justice Spicer

 

*The painting is by Clyde Forsythe, and in my opinion, one of the best captures of the scene that day.

Who Is Wild Bill Hickok?

Between Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill it’s tough to say who was the most prominent gun-carrying lawman of the old west. One distinction between the two men is that Wyatt didn’t become the legendary character among his peers that Wild bill had become during his own lifetime. He was certainly known and had a reputation (the degrees of which can be saved for another, more complete discussion another time), but he was never the praised folk hero that Hickok was.  And while Wyatt has become the more popular cultural figure of recent generations, there is no doubt that Wild Bill was the preeminent gunman of his time.

Having started his career primarily as a scout for the US Army, he earned a reputation for fearlessness and proficiency. Some stories are unverifiable, such as the incident where he allegedly took on a wild bear (though he did suffer an unknown attack that had him convalescing in a near death state), and others are well documented like his impressive shot across the courtyard that took down the antagonistic Davis Tutt.

Regardless of which stories are true and which are not, he was a striking and commanding figure; many people have noted as such in their various journals and recollections. Helpful to his branding was the friendship he had with Buffalo Bill. There’s something about the bonds of battle between two men that increases the interest and sympathies. To wit, Wyatt and Doc, Bat and Luke Short, Butch and Sundance; there’s just something about two legends who are bound together, even if the legend may be stretched a bit from the reality.

Avoiding a full biography on the man, it can summarily be said that he was foremost among his peers, and the embodiment of the quintessential frontier lawman. Even Wyatt Earp, according to Stuart Lake, claimed to have learned early valuable lessons from Wild Bill while a young man in Kansas City.

Wild Bill Hickok – They Called Him Wild Bill

Your first stop on your way to learning about Wild Bill Hickok should definitely be They Called Him Wild Bill, by Joseph G. Rosa. There are many writings on Hickok previous to Rosa’s book, but the benefit is that he has synthesized everything into a comprehensive, and well documented chronological biography. Rosa’s knowledge is vast, and he is the expert on all things Wild Bill, in much the same way that DeArment is for Bat Masterson or Gary Roberts is for Doc Holliday.

The qualities in Rosa’s book is that he doesn’t make assumptions, nor does he require it of the reader. He gives plausible statements for what he determines to be the most likely truth, and still leaves room for things to change were new evidence to be presented. In fact, his introduction states as much, and cites it as the reason why a second edition follow-up to the first was necessitated.

There were a lot of stories told about Wild Bill; he was a western celebrity while he was still alive, and journalists loved to tell stories about him. Unfortunately this makes for a murky quagmire when wishing to process the truth out of the swamp of lies, but Rosa handles it deftly and thoroughly. When one hears an anecdote, and due to it’s un-believability, Rosa consistently makes a fair case for both ways the conventional thought could. Regarding the claim that Hickok was made a U.S. Deputy Marshal at Fort Riley in the beginning of 1866, Rosa shows that the work he was doing would certainly fall under that title, and also shows why it could be plausible that there may be no documentation of his engagement. And, at the same time, Rosa also shows how the title may have been an exaggeration of what he was actually doing, which was classed as detective work. Almost without fail, when he reaches a conclusion, he will state that it is his belief, and not dismiss what he doesn’t believe.

The book goes, with introduction, almost exactly 350 pages, however, Rosa has written four different books on Wild Bill, and this one serves as the first volume, for all practical purposes. Together with the other three, he has done rather similarly what Lee Silva has done with Wyatt Earp; the prime difference being  that Silva published one very large volume, where as Rosa did four different books. But what results in the end is complete dissecting of James Butler and all the pertinent elements of his life as a gunman. He has covered him in a standard, and very well done, biography, followed by books that break down his gunfights, examine the world he lived in, giving context to his world, and a book solely devoted to examining the stories that made Hickok a legend.

To really study Wild Bill Hickok, a person should read all four of Rosa’s books covering the man, and They Called Him Wild Bill is definitely the starting point. And if you want to know about him, but don’t need to go deeper into follow-up books then this one will set you straight.

Wild Bill (1996)

Wild Bill starring Jeff Bridges is both a movie you have to see, as well as a movie you probably ought to turn off about half way through. Bridges is fantastic as Wild Bill. Admitting that it’s impossible to know exactly what a man was like in real life who lived so long ago, for my dollar Bridges comes as close as anyone who’s ever been on screen. His confidence, his tone, demeanor, his stride and stance, all convey to me exactly the image I get when I read about the real man.

The movie gets off to a good start, depicting Wild Bill on the range, and briskly moves through many of his more acclaimed moments. The problem comes when the script suddenly goes sideways and becomes all about a lost love who has an avenger in the name of Jack McCall, who hunts down Hickok and, unable to finish off the man himself, hires a gang of gunslingers to harass and essentially kidnap Bill and his friends.

It is true that no one knows exactly who Jack McCall was or why he hated Wild Bill Hickok, and therefore a little bit of artistic license should be allowed when presenting some conjecture on this part of the story. Unfortunately, the route taken goes so far off course, taking the rest of the story with it, that it corrupts the whole timeline of Wild Bill, and by the end of the movie it’s sort of a psychedelic mess (yes, psychedelic).

Aside from the gunplay and the strangeness of the relationship theories, there is also some thoughtful time given to Wild Bill’s time as a performer, as well as to his deteriorating state in his latter years. The moments are relatively succinct, which is appropriate for a movie covering the entirety of a life rather than one aspect of it, but it brings enough to the audience to create sincere sympathy, and in a compact way, give a good snapshot of the man.

I think it best to watch the movie completely through the first time it’s viewed, but for me, whenever I choose to re-watch it, I press the clicker before it gets too weird. It’s too bad it’s such a schizophrenic creature, because it is easily the best depiction of Hickok and many of his gunfights that we have to date. Perhaps with some luck we’ll get a newer version that can improve on the positives of this one.

Tombstone (1993)

Let’s all say it together: I’m you’re Huckleberry

Ok, now with that out of the way we can begin…

It’s been almost twenty-five years since Tombstone’s release and still it remains as an oft-quoted piece of easily recognizable Americana. It’s hard to find a person who even moderately enjoys westerns and hasn’t already seen the movie, so I don’t see any need to offer a review and critique, but instead, let’s just talk about it.

Tombstone was the first major movie to get mustaches right! This is a huge thing for me. As much as I love the old classics, and the old TV shows, I can never get past how clean shaven and pretty everyone was. Tombstone unapologetically hoisted upon the un-expecting American movie-going public a whole cast of men with testosterone laced sweeping ‘staches. And upper-lip coiffing was only the beginning. From this bold point the creators set forth to bring us one of the most accurate historical westerns we’ve seen.

True, some will highlight this or that element that isn’t accurate, but movie makers have to be allowed to be succinct in pulling together certain moments in order to get the point across when the alternative is to leave significant elements out altogether. But the amount of things that Tombstone gets right overrides any petty nitpicking of details that the average movie goers wouldn’t be aware of, anyway. Probably the only way to be able to get more accurately detailed would be if they were to make a week long mini-series of the whole ordeal; which would be a welcome endeavor, to my way of thinking.

Tombstone is the western for a generation. In the late 60’s Clint Eastwood teamed with Sergio Leone and re-presented westerns, changing people’s attitudes for a whole generation. Until Tombstone came along Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns were considered template of what westerns had come to mean for the world at large. But Tombstone came along and did the same thing, changing people’s notions of what westerns should look like, and their characters should act.

People like Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo illuminated a truth about the gambling, gun-slinging men of those wild days. Wyatt and Virgil and Morgan gave us a real insight to what lawing was really like, and the challenges facing a society working hard to establish itself. Yes, these elements have been done before in westerns, but never with the accuracy and sleek style of Tombstone. It’s mix of history lessons with cool appeal imbedded itself in the minds of American consciousness.

Now, nearly twenty-five years since it’s original release, we can hope that someone is yet again up to the challenge and present us with another cinematic marvel that embodies all that Americans have loved about westerns, and define it for this generation, giving new viewers a reason to be awed by the west and the men and women who lived it.