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.

New Wyatt Earp TV Show

Travis Fimmel, who played Ragnar Lothbrok on History Channel’s Vikings, has made his departure and is ready to take on new projects. This has resulted in a potential Wyatt Earp anthology show to be produced, starring Fimmel, who has also pitched the show and is helping to get it made. There are no dates set yet, though the latest guesses have it looking like it could start production as soon as he completes a current short-film project he’s working on. It’s important to keep in mind that many shows and movies are bandied about and then die a slow death before ever being made into something real. Fimmel has good relationships with History Channel and those behind the scenes there, so the prognosis is on the positive side of things, but until production starts and cameras are rolling, we have to simply wait with fingers crossed.

The idea, as reported so far, is to introduce Wyatt Earp to the western frontier, primarily in Kansas, and especially in Dodge city. The show will build to the events of the Tombstone shootout and be a work up about how the man came to be who he was, and how he came to that moment. Along the way there will be focus on the people in Wyatt’s life and the associations he held. Friendships with fellow dangerous men like Bat and Doc will be included, and, with a little luck, perhaps we could even see a screen version of Luke Short.

There’s a couple of pluses and minuses that can be assessed even at this early stage. For one, Travis Fimmel has a good look for Wyatt Earp. I haven’t seen him with a swooping mustache yet, but just his eyes and general face shape seem to belie a touch of the stoic gunman. He has expressed his reasons for wanting to see this made, and while I don’t know that it qualifies as a “passion project”, he does carry some level of personal interest in seeing it get done, and that can keep the fires burning for a sustained period of time, rather than seeing it smoke out right away. In short, Fimmel’s participation as both actor and producer should help to make this produced and be decent quality.

On the flip side of things, Hollywood seems to never really understand history, and when they don’t understand history they seem to think they can hide the fact by filling in with lots of cheesy tropes that they think are true to the time. The show is planned to be a History Channel project, so this can offer some hope, but even History Channel sometimes seems to be remiss at presenting accurate history. Additionally, everyone seems to have their own take on Wyatt Earp. This is because he was a fairly complex man who lived a complex life. Some will say that he was a thief and pimp, others will argue that he was an upright officer who valued life. Most all would be able to back up their conviction with solid evidence. Like I say, it was a complex life.

Where this element of complexity becomes an issue is when people try to tell the tale. Too often Wyatt is either unfairly vilified, or unaccountably praised. It’s true that in life he was much more often on the side of right, but it’s become the more contemporary trend to sensationalisticly pick over the darker periods of the mans life and slap the label of bad guy on him. The reason this is relevant to this show is because Fimmel states his reason for wanting to do this project is that he is fascinated by peoples scandalous journey’s into infamy. This sounds like a predisposed notion to cast Earp as a villain, and we don’t need another “Doc” (1972).

It’s still very early, so no judgments should be made at this point, but to do justice to a complex man living a complex life it would be best to avoid pre-labeling him as one thing or another. Fimmel said he’s fascinated by the journey, so let’s hope that means they really investigate it and do it intelligently, and fairly.

A Brief Look at the Towns of the Old West

This post is intended as a preamble for the list of old west towns.

There were a few main types of towns that prospered in the old west. As with most everything in this world, there is a process of building to something, and then there’s the path leading away from that particular moment in time. Towns in the western frontier were unique because they served a point in time that was unique, and just as everything else, there was a reason they were built and a reason that they went the way they did; whatever that direction may have been.

The most commonly thought of towns in the old west were Cow-Towns and Boom-Towns. It’s true that a cow-town could also be a boom-town, but most often they were essentially separate in their proliferations. In addition to these two types we had trail towns and supply towns. A supply town may not be a boom-town/mining camp, but due to it’s proximity, along with helpful attributes, such as being aligned with a well used trail road, the supply town could see prosperity in a symbiotic relationship to the boom-town/mining camp.

One very common locale in the old frontier days that won’t be included were the military forts. Because it is such an in depth element all of it’s own, and the fact that they were military fortifications, not the places of bar-fights and shootouts, we won’t be including it. However, in a dynamic mimicking the coupling of supply town to mining camps, likewise camp-towns often accompanied the military forts of the west.

Very often a town would spring to life along a commonly used trail. At first it may be nothing more than a trading post, then perhaps the addition of another establishment leads it into becoming a small trail town. Then one day the train makes a stop and now it becomes known for foot traffic arriving by rail, and commonly becomes identified as a train stop town. One interesting case in this is El Paso, Texas. The community existed for some time do to it’s crossing from Jaurez, Mexico. It eventually became a prominent travel hub, being setup as a primary route for those traveling to and from Texas to New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado. Yet despite the fact that it was such a center-piece for western travel, it didn’t enjoy the trains arrival until May of 1881, where Marshal Dallas Stoudenmire was present to greet the president of the rail company.

For the sake of a bit of easy clarity, I have distinguished between a cow-town and a cattle town. The cow-town being one that prospered from the arrival of the cow-boys and their cows from Texas (or other locations), and the cattle town being a place that prospered from the sale of cattle. For illustrations sake, San Antonio might be considered a cattle town due to the ranchers who owned and sold cattle en mass, and Dodge City, where the cow-boys drove this cattle and wildly celebrated at the end of the drive, would be referred to as a cow-town.

None of these descriptors are encyclopedic presets, they are merely what I have decided on for my own simplified reference points. There were, of course, other types of towns, such as agriculture communities and others, but since these were very seldom locations that drew the gun-toting element, they are very rarely ever mentioned. An example of this could be Phoenix Arizona, which was planned and plotted along the Gila River for agriculture. With it’s differing origins and purposes from Tucson, Prescott, or Tombstone, it’s not one that’s really ever heard of in the annals of the wild west. (As a side note to Phoenix, if you would like a glimpse at the history of Phoenix from the old days, the only remaining building in the original downtown area stands at 2nd & Washington and serves, presently, as a sports bar/night club.) Wichita started out also as an agricultural community, but once the cattle trade started driving there, it became, primarily, a cow-town. This lasted until the cattle industry ventures migrated elsewhere; which brings around another key factor in the life of western towns.

Very few old west towns went on to prominence. Dodge City has maintained, but never became huge. Phoenix became huge, but was never really an old west stomping ground. Denver could be a rare case where a traditional fighting, gambling, whoring community made good and is still impactful today. But with most of these towns there was a trend that was common. First a community would struggle to attract commerce, then, subsequent efforts to attract people would often bring about a rowdy crowd. These were often the cow-boys, the lawmen, the gamblers, rustlers, and everybody in general who saw a chance to make some money. But these classes of citizens were not the desired bedrock of the community and once a town had attracted what it wanted, it began to filter out what it didn’t. This led to the removal or exiting of many of the colorful western element, and left the towns to go their own course.

Today, we, the historically enthused, chase around after these sacred locales, studying and absorbing what they were and what they are. To get a broad snapshot of what the towns were and a few pertinent details, please refer to the Old West Towns List. You can simply look up a town by name, or scroll through the list. The intent is to give a quick, easy idea of what things looked like. You can look at the census for Deadwood and see how it grew, or compare it to Ogallala and others to get an idea of what the town might have looked like at a time when a certain hombre strolled in. Hopefully with a little context and juxtaposition, a better understanding can be had.

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.

A List of Towns of the Old West

Please note: This page has trouble supporting the format for the Towns list, therefor a front “card” has been inserted as placeholder when clicking on the Fundamentals link. Please click HERE to be taken to A List of Towns of the Old West.

 

Better just keep moseying folks…