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So beat me with a wet noodle but I could not allow this category to stand unmodified by at least a disclaimer. John Ford was no naïve spectator of history. He knew Earp and reputedly had the story of the OK Corral told to him by Earp himself. He could discern fiction in a spicy re-telling as well as any of us--this film was not his attempt to set the record straight. Nor was he a huckster; he was not shilling for Wyatt Earp. Ford was a master story-teller, and more than anything he wanted to EVOKE with his images. His films are replete with the visual, the humorous, and grandeur. These are what make a Ford film. His poorest movies are those that failed to evoke on some level. I enjoy separating the kernels of truth from the chaff of myth or plain fiction--but I felt that the section as it stood was a negative POV regarding this movie. So I added the disclaimer to balance it and left the rest intact.--Buckboard 19:30, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Almost too many to count: "Old Man" Clanton (Walter Brennan) actually was killed (by someone not involved in this story) two months before the massacre at the OK Corral. Doc Holliday was a Georgia dentist, not a Boston surgeon. Billy Clanton was killed in the shootout at the Corral, not the day before. The movie shows the entire Clanton clan as the only opposition against the Earps, and all the Clantons being killed (the Old Man last), as well as Doc Holliday. In fact, the Earps' opposition consisted of only two Clantons - Ike (who ran away without drawing his gun) and Billy - two McLaurys (Tom & Frank) and Billy Claiborne (who also ran away). There were no fatalities on the Earp side (altho Wyatt was the only one uninjured on that side); both McLaurys were killed and Billy Clanton was killed.
The movie positions the OK Corral on the very edge of town, essentially on a corner of town and facing the wilderness on three sides; in point of fact, it was in the middle of a fair sized town and surrounded on all sides by streets and blocks of buildings. The movie indicates that the Earp group (of three men; Wyatt, Morgan and Holliday) split up and came at the Clantons from different directions, mostly crouching behind fence posts at a considerable distance and the like; in fact, although it cannot be certain, it would appear that the Earp group (four men, with Virgil Earp) walked in and stood together and within about 15 feet of their opposition when the shooting started.
The movie has the Clantons (specifically the Old Man) murdering James and then Virgil Earp and afterward challenging Wyatt to a gunfight at dawn at the OK Corral. In fact Virgil was part of the Earp group at that gunfight (with Wyatt and Morgan, and Doc Holliday), James was occupied as a saloon manager, was not involved in the Corral or the events leading to it and died in 1926. The gunfight at the Corral took place about 2:30 in the afternoon and was not intended by the Clantons as a rendezvous with the Earps.
The movie makes Wyatt the town marshal; in fact, it was Virgil Earp.
The movie has the lone survivors of the gunfight -- Wyatt and Morgan -- leaving Tombstone shortly after the gunfight. In fact they (and Virgil) stayed in Tombstone considerably longer: Virgil Earp was attacked and crippled by unknown gunmen about three months after the Corral, Morgan was killed by an unidentified gunman about six months after the Corral. Wyatt left Tombstone about a year after the gunfight.
Some of these errors (such as the early murder of James, and the gunfight at sunrise) were repeated in the 1957 film, GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL, starring Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster (John Ireland appeared in both movies).
As an aside, the gunfight has usually been depicted as a heroic episode of frontier law enforcement against outlaws. That depiction is largely influenced by Wyatt Earp's own account, on which Stuart Lake's biography was based. Other eyewitness accounts are much less favorable to the Earps, who were regarded by locals more as competitors than opponents of the men they shot, including eyewitness accounts that Billy Clanton had his empty hands raised when he was mortally shot and that Holliday shot a surrending Tom McLaury from nearly point-blank range.
Sussmanbern (talk) 01:52, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The famous gunfight was in 1881. This film is supposedly set in 1882. The song My Darling Clementine was not written til 1884. 70.161.8.90 (talk) 21:04, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
