Tombstone

Shown: 27 November 1999
Sponsored and introduced by David Gainsborough Roberts

USA 1993
Directed by George P. Cosmatos
Leading players - Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and Sam Elliott

Synopsis

Tombstone was discovered in 1879 by a miner who found silver and within months of the strike, more than 10,000 prospectors, gamblers, saloon owners, loose women and gunmen arrived in Tombstone. Among the get-rich-quick opportunists were the five Earp brothers, their women and Doc Holliday.

Kurt Russell works well at keeping Wyatt's tarnished halo shining bright while Val Kilmer has a marvellous time as the consumptive, disagreeable Doc Holliday.

Trouble starts when Virgil Earp (Sam Elliott) is appointed city marshal and at first there is a secret partnership between the Earp party and the cowboy gang to rob stages but this soon falls apart and Ike Clanton (Stephen Lang) feels betrayed. The main protagonist in all this is the murderous Doc Holliday. It is Virgil Earp and not brother Wyatt who makes the decision to go and arrest Ike Clanton (Stephen Lang) and his followers. Only two of the four rustlers exiting from the OK Corral are armed; all four of the Earp gang are heavily weighed down with guns. In thirty seconds three of the stage robbers are killed and Morgan Earp (Bill Paxton) and Virgil are seriously injured.

Wyatt is run out of Arizona, deserts his wife Mattie (Dana Wheeler Nicholson) and goes off with a teenage dancer, Josephine Marcus (Dana Delany). Mattie later commits suicide and Wyatt marries young Josephine. According to the film they go off to a life of wedded bliss. In truth it is a marriage made in hell which endured to Wyatt's death in 1929. History has glorified Wyatt while maligning most of those around him.

Despite the inaccuracies this is a great western. Big, brash, noisy, colourful and compelling to watch.