Tombstone **** (1993, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Charlton Heston, Jason Priestley, Stephen Lang) – Classic Movie Review 4,169

George Cosmatos’s 1993 film Tombstone stars Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and is written by Kevin Jarre, the original director, fired early in production. The film was a hit and has become a cult classic. 

Director George Pan Cosmatos delivers an intriguing, engaging and felicitous reworking of the famous story of the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, between the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan, plus Doc Holliday and the Clanton and McLaury brothers at about 3 pm on Wednesday October 26 1881.

Director Cosmatos marshals this complex, epic Western material into the coherent, driving 1993 film Tombstone, and he carefully times scenes and painstakingly judges the pace, mood and atmosphere. Kevin Jarre’s screenplay, loosely based on the real events, is involving and engrossing, with decently written dialogue, winning the struggle to pull off an ensemble story and compress a long tale into a short space and the battle to write strong emotional scenes of love or revenge.

Tombstone motors on a series of eye-catching performances from an extremely interesting cast. Replacing Kevin Costner who jumped ship and joined the rival Wyatt Earp (1994), Kurt Russell tries hard and is certainly commanding and awe-inspiring enough as Wyatt Earp. Val Kilmer goes for oddball as Holliday, complete with a weird genteel Southern accent, effete manners and continual coughing in every speech. Nevertheless, his performance is highly regarded.

And then there is a stalwart cast of effective actors giving intense performances, headed by Sam Elliott as town Marshal Virgil Earp, Bill Paxton as Morgan Earp, Powers Boothe as snarling gunslinger Curly Bill Brocius, Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo, Charlton Heston as Henry Hooker, Jason Priestley as Billy Breckinridge, Stephen Lang as Ike Clanton, Thomas Haden Church as Billy Clanton and Jon Tenney as Sheriff Johnny Behan.

Tombstone in 1881.

However, in this man’s man movie, the women have a very hard time. Dana Delany is exceptionally dull as the heroine, Josephine Marcus, and there is not much to do for the other main actresses, Paula Malcomson as Allie Earp, Lisa Collins as Louisa Earp and Dana Wheeler-Nicholson as Mattie Earp.

On the other hand, it is a powerful Western yarn with considerable resonance, William A Fraker’s cinematography is often startlingly beautiful, Bruce Broughton’s score is most effective, and the production is extremely handsome.

Its directness and lack of pretension are infinitely preferable to Kevin Costner’s simultaneously filmed Wyatt Earp (1994), which Tombstone beat in a race to the cinemas. Costing $25 million and grossing $56 million in US cinemas, it was a box office success and it certainly has its admirers, both then and now. However, it does not replace Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) as the cinema’s definitive telling of the tale.

It runs 130 minutes and 134 minutes in the director’s cut.

The narration is by Robert Mitchum.

Shooting began in May 1993, primarily on location in Arizona. The film was screenwriter Kevin Jarre’s first job as director but he was said to be overwhelmed by it, failing to get needed shots and falling behind schedule. He was fired by producer Andrew Vajna and replaced with George P Cosmatos a month into filming. Russell says it was he, not Cosmatos, who directed the film. But Kilmer has stopped short of saying that Russell did the actual directing, while Biehn said that Russell never directed him personally. Russell apparently worked with producer James Jacks to cut down Jarre’s sprawling script, and Kilmer backs up Russell’s story that he worked heavily behind the scenes.

Greek-Italian film director and screenwriter George Pan Cosmatos (4 January 1941 – 19 April 2005) was born to a Greek family in Florence, Italy, and grew up in Egypt and Cyprus. He studied film at the London Film School.

He directed two Sylvester Stallone box-office hits Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Cobra (1986). Kurt Russell said Sylvester Stallone recommended Cosmatos to him after the removal of the first director, screenplay writer Kevin Jarre. Cosmatos had also worked with Tombstone executive producer Andrew G Vajna before on Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Bill Paxton died on 25 February 2017, aged 61.

Powers Boothe died on 14 May 2017, aged 68. He played FBI Agent Wesley Doyle in Bill Paxton’s Frailty (2001), White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig in Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995), World Security Council member Gideon Malick in The Avengers (2012) and Senator Roark in Sin City (2005) and Sin City A Dame to Kill For (2014). He also starred in The Emerald Forest, Red Dawn, Deadwood, 24, Southern Comfort, Rapid Fire, Extreme Prejudice, and Sudden Death (1995). He reprised the role of Gideon Malick in ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,169

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