Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die (1942)

Sadly Over-hyped

Memorable, crazy movie

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

SYNOPSIS: Two prospectors, Tadpole (Clem Bevans) and Ed Schieffelin (Wallis Clark), discover silver in the Arizona hills and they name the spot "Tombstone". Years later, they establish the Schieffelin and Foster Mining Properties and with this as a centre, the two rich partners create a town which soon grows big enough to sport "The Epitaph", a newspaper. The editor of the paper writes editorials to chide "the Mayor and his phoney peace officers", because Curly Bill (Edgar Buchanan) and his circle of outlaws really run the town. Things become so tough in the town that Wyatt Earp (Richard Dix), one of three brothers from the Southwest, is pressed into service as Sheriff. NOTES: Locations at Long Valley in the High Sierras, and Lone Pine in the Alabama Hills.COMMENT: Here's Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and all our other friends of the O.K. Corral, this time directed by Bill McGann. Although it doesn't quite achieve the epic stature it's obviously aiming for, and suffers by comparison with the other versions, particularly My Darling Clementine and Frontier Marshal, it's still a fascinating, suspenseful, action-packed piece of entertainment.

Previous reviewers of this film damn it with faint praise if that, but I found it noteworthy as yet another chapter in the Wyatt Earp saga as viewed by Hollywood. The real Earp hung around Hollywood till his death around 1929 and got to know some of the movie makers. Stuart Lake's biography was published in 1931, and Clarence Kelland's TOMBSTONE on which this movie is supposedly based, according to the screen credits, was well known. Well, Hollywood and history are only kissing cousins when it comes to factual matters, and this movie brushes along a lot of truths. But the one thing it does well is the depiction of the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral. The actual fight occurred in a very short space and took a very short time totally unlike the depictions in John Ford's MY DARLING CLEMENTINE and the Burt Lancaster/Kirk Douglas GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL. The depiction here comes closest in the movies to every film and TV version (such as the "You Are There" version) to the actual event as detailed in the many recent histories of Wyatt Earp. It also depicts the murder of Morgan Earp very well since that event occurred soon after the gunfight. As a movie, however, it meanders a lot probably because it tries to tell too many stories at the same time. Earp has to contend not only with unruly cowboys and outlaws but also political corruption at the highest level. The horrendous time waster is spent on Earp's attempt to save a totally fictional person, a young man called Johnny, from a life of crime and to promote the guy's romance with a girl who follows him from Kansas. The antagonist for much of the movie is Curly Bill, played by Edgar Buchanan with much juicy relish, and he has his minions in Ike and Phin Clanton and Indian Charlie, who were real people in Earp's life, but who had no such fates as described in the movie. The shoot out at the end following an abortive robbery of a silver shipment provides an exciting climax, but has no relation to actual events. Sadly, Kent Taylor as Doc Holliday has very little to do to show his acting skills, and Richard Dix as Wyatt Earp is sometimes so low key as to seem he is sleepwalking through a movie he finds boring. Because this film is seldom seen, and has some worthwhile parts to it for western movie fans and for Wyatt Earp fans, I recommend it -- not for its historical accuracy, but for its contribution to myth making.

Richard Dix (Wyatt Earp) rides into Tombstone and is given the role of sheriff to keep order and keep out the lawless behaviour that is led by Edgar Buchanan (Curly Bill). The film ends with a shoot-out, apparently the famous OK Coral gunfight.The film could have been better. It's a bunch of cowboys shooting guns and isn't very interesting and the cast is uninspired. Dix doesn't cut it as the lead player – he just falls short – and Buchanan is just a lump of lard. Surely he wasn't the hardest looking villain they could find? The best part of the film was Beryl Wallace (Queenie) singing in the saloon. The final shoot-out is ridiculous. For a while, people just stand there and shoot without any cover. They would all be dead.

I agree with Frankfob's comment on this film. It's nicely made, with some interesting actors. The only point I would carp about is the unlimited number of bullets that Curly Billy and his gang fire off early on in the film without appearing to re-load their revolvers.Perhaps Richard Dix is a little old for the film, and he doesn't convey the machismo that Randolph Scott and Gary Cooper retained in middle age, but he does well enough.Don Castle has a great screen presence - lots of charisma, and it's interesting to note that he later had a minor role as a drunk cowboy in "Gunfight at the OK Corral". The love interest is reasonably muted and Frances Gifford doesn't have too much screen time.And Edgar Buchanan as Curly Bill doesn't mumble, as he was inclined to do later in his career