Well I’m attempting to watch Wyatt Earp tonight & I should have just listened to @aldo
jesus christ with the cinematic music swells every 2 minutes. Nothing can happen in this movie without the Jurassic Park theme playing
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Watch it alongside Tombstone. Then judge it.
I remember ‘Tombstone’ got really badly panned in Empire mag when it was first released - they actually gave it one star out of five … a rating usually reserved for mega-crap … I avoided seeing it at the cinema based on their verdict.
Later I found that I’d gone to see the wrong Ok Corral movie … How they can justify this rating! … was it a printing error or did someone representing Warner Bros. offer a bigger bribe to plug their film ?
’Tombstone’ may not be perfect, but it’s a helluva better film than 'Wyatt Earp’
Empire was a pile of shite anyway … giving dubiously high marks to mediocre action blockbusters … The magazine that gave ‘Speed’ and ‘The Godfather’ the same 5 star maximum. something not right there.
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I concur with that. I would not put any underhanded tactics past the executives at Warner Brothers either.
Now watch ‘Doc’ from 1971 and see what you think!
Is that the one with Stacey Keach?
Well, yes,obviously I like any kind of western, that’s why I asked about the “even”, which would imply that I don’t.
I love westerns from all decades, and potentially from every country, as long as they entertain me. But I generally don’t hate films.
Yes, Stacy Keach.
The main criticism I heard over Tombstone was that Kilmer was no Keach.
Or vice versa … you’ll have to see it for yourself - All the OK corral movies I’ve seen have little in common, except for the character names. The historical aspects seem rather fuzzy by this stage - Were the Earps gangsters pushing their weight around rather than solely serving justice ? Depends what you wish to believe. I don’t mind so long as the movie is entertaining.
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My view is the Earp clan started off as lawmen and then events caused Wyatt and Co to turn more vigilante, with the badges making legal. The correct word would be vengeance - personal justice not straight lawful justice.
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Plus all the different interpretations keep the legend alive.
Kilmer is much better than Keach in the role.
Actually, and that’s probably the best aspect about Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp, Dennis Quaid is similar good as Holiday.
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I will have to watch DOC (1971).
I thought Kilmer was genuinely menacing as Holiday as there was a hint of threat in nearly everything he said.
Quaid’s Holliday is the best thing about Kazdan’s film. And nothing will sway me on that.
I also enjoyed Quaid as Holiday but I didn’t finish the movie… turned it off a bit over 1 hour in. 3 hours for this movie is ridiculous. But I did think the Doc portrayal was good.
I also loved Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone. He plays a sickly drunk gunman very well.
I watched Hour of the Gun and thought Jason Robards was the best actor in this film. While I enjoyed his character, his performance has nothing on Kilmer IMO. I thought the movie itself was good, but not great. Loved the slow intro/credit sequence building to the showdown. But the film itself suffers from the kind of general character that turns me off about these older American westerns. Its hard for me to explain exactly what it is, but maybe if I think it over for a while I can come up with the words…
I’ll check out Doc (1971) next
As for the real Earp, well he seems to have come from a poor background and was a bit of a drifter, making his living in various outsider ways such as running a brothel and associating with “undesirables” - I’m afraid I can’t consider him to be an upright lawman or anything of the sort, as far as his general character, not that I view him as a “bad guy”
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Interesting, cause I think this one should be acceptable for those who don’t like older US westerns. No “love interests”, well made shoot-outs and a protagonist who uses his badge to kill people.
A typical US western for 1967, and one which stands at the beginning of a series of westerns which deconstructed the often filmed famous legendary western characters. But those to follow like Doc or Dirty Little Billy or The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid were much more merciless towards their fallen “heroes”.
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Yes, I agree with you there. It does fit the bill as far as having those elements. But there is something still which puts me off, more in the general way the film is made rather than its contents. Perhaps its partially in the way it seems obviously made for a certain kind of viewer back in those times, and I am not that viewer.
Sorry I’m not offering up any concrete criticisms. I’m trying to think of wordings which don’t sound pretentious or even offensive, but I think one of my big problems with these films is how they represent aspects of society that really put me off, even when they are trying to portray questionable characters such as this, they are still displayed and played in such a way as to still be respectable representations of said elements…
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Also, I’m not a big fan of the protagonist being a lawman and using his badge. Its one of the things that gets marks off in my book for westerns. The other things getting marks off are too many scenes around the civil war, ridiculous portrayals of “Indians” and boring music. These American westerns always have very boring music to me.
My preferred western is centered around drifting loners, or somehow an individual in a bad situation.
A movie like Tombstone gets a pass because this isn’t the typical sheriff taking out the baddies scenario, the characters/story are more nuanced.
A movie such as The Proposition is an excellent example of the kind of western I prefer. I can’t recall ever seeing any older American westerns which really approach this kind of angle. They are generally on a larger scale, even when the story is mostly action.
I have this attitude for all action films actually. I prefer it to be more drawn into a smaller story. The larger it gets, the less interested I am.
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Hour of the Gun, and films of this ilk are let down by a particular type of casting - always lots of older geezers in minor or extra parts, standing around in near pristine costumes … They look like 50 plus gents at a works convention who won the chance to appear in a movie … too clean cut and conservative, no one really dangerous or dubious or stinking dirty, like you might find around any town even today. 
Just one of my many pet peeves
The film itself isn’t bad and it’s locations are nicely filmed, but it didn’t blow me away … and isn’t Robards about twice Doc Holliday’s actual age in 1881?
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Yes, you’ve pretty much said exactly my feelings there @aldo
I almost typed out exactly that paragraph about a bunch of clean cut, conservative, neat gents in pristine costumes 
The scenery was certainly excellent and had some good moments as far as the action, but the rest of this stuff continually take me out of the whole thing. And not to harp on the music, but the music takes me out as well.
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