Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner

[Russ T Chambers]

Well I gotta add my two bits worth on this.  Costner did a better job with the Earp character than Hugh O'Brien did in that old TV show "Wyatt Earp".  In that show, O'Brien, playing Earp, was seen carrying a Buntline.  To my knowledge, Earp never carried one of those.  In the TV show, the Earp character was dressed a little too fancy and never seen wearing a coat of any type.  In the show, Earp was clean shaven.  The real Earp had a big, handlebar mustache.  In the TV show the Earp character was portrayed as squeaky clean.  The real Earp was far from that!  So I think Costner did a better job with the Earp character.

Ok Kid:
Time to go back and review some old "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" shows.  Hugh O'Brien wears a black frock coat in several of his episodes.  While this show has absolutely no factual relationship to the "The Life" of Wyatt, it sure did a lot to help perpetuate the ”Legend” part.

[The Arapaho Kid]

Well I gotta add my two bits worth on this.  Costner did a better job with the Earp character than Hugh O'Brien did in that old TV show "Wyatt Earp".  In that show, O'Brien, playing Earp, was seen carrying a Buntline.  To my knowledge, Earp never carried one of those.  In the TV show, the Earp character was dressed a little too fancy and never seen wearing a coat of any type.  In the show, Earp was clean shaven.  The real Earp had a big, handlebar mustache.  In the TV show the Earp character was portrayed as squeaky clean.  The real Earp was far from that!  So I think Costner did a better job with the Earp character.

Ok Kid:
Time to go back and review some old "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" shows.  Hugh O'Brien wears a black frock coat in several of his episodes.  While this show has absolutely no factual relationship to the "The Life" of Wyatt, it sure did a lot to help perpetuate the ”Legend” part.

Well...I never saw all the old Hugh O'Brien/Wyatt Earp shows.  If you said he wore a coat...I'll take your word on that.  Have you seen that Kenny Rogers, made for TV movie "The Gambler - Luck of the Draw"?  That's the one with all the old TV western stars in it.  In that movie there is a brief scene with Hugh O'Brien playing Wyatt.  He is asked by someone if there was any truth to his legend.  O'Brien's reply was "If you don't know the truth...believe the legend!"

[Scattered Thumbs]

Two pictures of Wyatt Earp.  Picture one taken in the late 19th. centruy.  Picture two taken two weeks before he died in 1929.
http://ferncanyonpress.com/tombston/wyatt/photos.shtml  Good website for more pictures

Arapaho,

from the same site is the 1876 Dodge picture taken with Bat Masterson, The OK Corral Wyatt should be somewhere in between this one and the Handlebar mustache one.

PS. Pay no mind to my avatars, they get changed a lot. 

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[Texas Lawdog]

I like Tombstone better than Wyatt Earp. I have watched Tombstone more times. One of the actors in the film is a friend of mine.  Buck Taylor is one of Wyatt's deputies in the movie. As well as being a great actor, Buck is a very talented artist. I have several of his prints framed in my Ranch Style home.

[Joyce (AnnieLee)]

I like both "Tombstone " and "Wyatt Earp" for different reasons and will watch one or another according to my mood.

However, I recently finished reading "Gunman's Rhapsody" by Robert A. Parker. It gave me pause, for events in the book did not coincide with what the movies portrayed. I thought: How could Robert Parker have gotten the shootings of Virgil and Morgan so out of sequence and wrong? It led me to further research. Heh.

I don't understand why both movies portray Morgan getting shot and dying before but on the same night as Virgil was shot , when the reality was that Virgil was shot months before Morgan was killed.

Still like them for the entertainment, though,

AnnieLee

[Russ T Chambers]

I like both "Tombstone " and "Wyatt Earp" for different reasons and will watch one or another according to my mood.

However, I recently finished reading "Gunman's Rhapsody" by Robert A. Parker. It gave me pause, for events in the book did not coincide with what the movies portrayed. I thought: How could Robert Parker have gotten the shootings of Virgil and Morgan so out of sequence and wrong? It led me to further research. Heh.

I don't understand why both movies portray Morgan getting shot and dying before but on the same night as Virgil was shot , when the reality was that Virgil was shot months before Morgan was killed.

Still like them for the entertainment, though,

AnnieLee

Tombstone is still my favorite of the two, but the shootout next to Fly’s behind the OK corral still bothers me in every Holly-weird version of the incident. 
But in Tombstone the sequence of the shootings of Virg and Morg are correct.  Virgil gets shot after leaving the Oriental while Wyatt and Morgan are still there.
Then later, Wyatt is with Virgil, leaves, then Morg gets shot playing pool.  (Why would he be playing pool in a saloon while his brother is lying wounded?)  But there is still a problem with the two shootings occurring the same night, when they really were several months apart. (That probably explains the playing pool in a saloon while his brother is lying wounded).
Need to go back and watch Wyatt Earp again to see that sequence. 

[The Arapaho Kid]

I've seen the reenactment of the OK Coral thing in Tombstone, put on by the Boot Hill Gunslingers.  They do it pretty close to the real thing, but they do "Hollywood" it up a little bit.  The Boot Hill Gunslingers are a local group in Tombstone.  Some of them are descendants of the Clantons & the McLawreys (SP?).  They put the show on two times a day in the summer.

[RRio]

I like both "Tombstone " and "Wyatt Earp" for different reasons and will watch one or another according to my mood.

However, I recently finished reading "Gunman's Rhapsody" by Robert A. Parker. It gave me pause, for events in the book did not coincide with what the movies portrayed. I thought: How could Robert Parker have gotten the shootings of Virgil and Morgan so out of sequence and wrong? It led me to further research. Heh.

I don't understand why both movies portray Morgan getting shot and dying before but on the same night as Virgil was shot , when the reality was that Virgil was shot months before Morgan was killed.

Still like them for the entertainment, though,

AnnieLee

Tombstone is still my favorite of the two, but the shootout next to Fly’s behind the OK corral still bothers me in every Holly-weird version of the incident. 
But in Tombstone the sequence of the shootings of Virg and Morg are correct.  Virgil gets shot after leaving the Oriental while Wyatt and Morgan are still there.
Then later, Wyatt is with Virgil, leaves, then Morg gets shot playing pool.  (Why would he be playing pool in a saloon while his brother is lying wounded?)  But there is still a problem with the two shootings occurring the same night, when they really were several months apart. (That probably explains the playing pool in a saloon while his brother is lying wounded).
Need to go back and watch Wyatt Earp again to see that sequence. 

Virgil was ambushed Dec. 28, 1881 at 11:30 PM

Morgan was murdered March 18, 1882

[Buffalo Creek Law Dog]

I enjoyed Tombstone much more just for the guns, gear, and clothes seemed to be much more historically correct compared to Costner's Wyatt Earp.  Just don't think there were a lot of buscadero holster rigs in 1880's Tombstone.  Also, it seemed like everyone in Costner's movie were set on making a black and white movie, just absolutely no color in any of the clothes.  On a whole tho, I think both movies missed many marks that would have made for a more accurate portail of Wyatt.  Just don't know why Hollyweird always thinks they have to rewrite history.  The true story is usually alot more interesting that all that hollywood writer BS.  Still, both movies are great westerns and I own both on DVD, and if I had to pick which I am more entertained by it would be Tombstone.

Apparently the movie Tombstone was filmed first and they took all the period clothing.  Costner had to take what was left (which wasn't much) and import most of the props and costumes from Europe.

[jiminy criquet]

Tombstone was good, destined to be a classic.  'Wyatt Earp' was....uh, so bad that I never actually finished watching it.

Here's an interesting article in Business Week talking about collecting Western memorabilia.  This guy has letters from Earp that "show that the gunslinger was a scoundrel who sometimes murdered people in cold blood".

Needless to say, he can't give them away let alone sell them.  Sometimes the facts are rather uncomfortable.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_28/b3942111_mz070.htm

[44caliberkid]

I love both movies, own copies, and watch them both 3 or 4 times a year.  I don't compare them, they are apples and oranges, even though they cover the same material.  I also don't worry about historical inacurracies in Hollyweird movies, they are just for entertainment, not historical instruction.   I do get upset when History Channel or TLC productions have historic gafs, because they are representing themselves as historically accurate.
   If you want to see a real good Wyatt Earp movie, also not historically accurate, just a great western, go check out Hour of the Gun starring James Garner and Jason Robards and Robert Ryan.  This is a 40 year old movie that still holds up, a reel classic.

[Coop Trawlaine]

I agree, Hour of the Gun, was a good movie well casted.   Movies are for entertainment, school is for larnin

[Free Hand]

I feel that I must needs weigh in with my humble opinion. I feel that Tombstone was the more watchable movie with the more intertaining charactors (as in all the Wyatt Earp Movies he gets upstaged by ol' Doc); also it's a small thing, but it's the only one I've seen that explores the possiblity that Johnny Ringo was a well educated man from a genteel southern family. Unfortunatly I also side with those who feel Wyatt Earp was the more factual one,elaborating on thigs that the former only hinted at (the brothers involment in prostitution and the possible sorded past of the wives). BTW Wyatt was only "realy" married once. Matty and Josiphine were common law wives. The latter film is probably as close as we'll get to the truth- in one film. Having said that, let me add that-with all due respect- this is one of those western themes that's been done to death. What I'd much prefer is a movie about his post Tombstone days. He was a miner in Alaska and was very much involved in gambling enterprises in the San Diego and Tijuana areas for about ten years. Surely there must be other events in his life that would be intresting to see. In the end while Earp lived in (what is for us) an exciting time and was a couragous man, he was still a mere mortal; no better or worse that most of us would be if we alive in that era. 

[w.b. masterson]

A few years ago, Spielberg (sp?) put out a Young Indiana Jones movie for TV.  In that episode, Jones helps John Ford make an early Harry Carey movie using Wyatt Earp as a consultant.  Supposedly Ford did know Earp and drew on comments made by him in filming "My Darling Clemintine."  I have my doubts about that myself, having seen the movie.  If you recall, Holiday got killed in that one.

BAT

[Coop Trawlaine]

W.B.    Like all of Hollywood renditions of any time period they seem to forget "TIME".    They will do what they will do.   Take the movie "Sunset"  a fun movie with Bruce Willis as Tom Mix and James Garner as Wyatt, in fact they were close friends but leave it to Hollywood.  The time frame is off, at the time setting of the Story, Wyatt Earp was already dead.  He died two years earlier.

[Harley Starr]

To me these two movies will always have a heads or tails complex(if that makes any sense). As usual, Tombstone is endlessly quotable even after, gosh fifteen years! This movie feels like a 50's style western with 90's mindset.
I love the OK Corral shootout in BOTH movies. Tombstone had the feeling of "well we did our good deed", but the shootout in Wyatt Earp felt like it had entered a grey area. That's one aspect I find interesting. The Earp wives in Tombstone looked like they were cloned. In Wyatt Earp, they couldn't be more individualistic if they tried. Curly Bill Brocious(hope I spelled that right) and Johnny Ringo in Tombstone were practically brothers, what with Curly constantly trying to keep Juanito's spirits up. As we all know, Ringo is almost non existent in Wyatt Earp until that final shootout. Great death scene by the way! Almost the same for Curly Bill, yet I find Lewis Smith's take on Curly Bill to be a bit more realistic. He's a very subtle character and I find him most alarming when he looks right at you. In the final shootout, Curly is just blazing away and yet can't seem to touch Wyatt as he walks up to him with his shotgun! Folks that look on Curly Bill's face is absolutely priceless when he sees Wyatt coming right at him! I love seeing Kurt Russell and I always have, but I'm going to be original and say I like Kevin Costner. If it weren't for Silverado, the first Western I ever saw, then I don't think I would be here at all!

[Stillwater]

I know this is a very old thread. However, I liked both movies, one as well, as the other.

Bill

[Highlander999]

Well, the first time I watched Wyatt Earp, I fell Asleep (for real).  It was at the theatre and I just plain fell asleep.  I am not too big on Costner's acting.  I did like some of the characters in the movie Wyatt Earp though, and though Quaid did a great job.

But Tombstone far outweighted it in building the characters, and for just plain looking authentic.  And "Wyatt Earp" didn't have a "Johnny Ringo", a true evil character.  Micheal Biehn as Ringo was one of the best pieces of character acting I've ever seen.  In my mind, he pretty much made the movie.

Authenticity?  True to History?  When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. ...

[Old Doc]

I think everyone at the time expected Wyatt Earp to be THE movie about about the famed lawman but Tombstone became the more popular by far. I was surprised at the lack of authenticity in the gunleather used in Wyatt Earp. It is real apples and oranges to compare either of these films to the TV version with Hugh O'brian, which came not too long after the TV version of Wild Bill Hickok with Guy Madison. They didn't pretend an interest in historical accuracy in those days. I've never read that the real Wild Bill had a sidekick named Jingles

[Cinnamon Kid]

Have really enjoyed reading this thread. And since I have owned and watched both "Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp", aahhh twenty times each about, I agree that it is an apples to oranges thing. But for pure entertainment value I watch "Tombstone". Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer were at there best in this movie.