‘Bursts off the screen’: why Tombstone is my feelgood movie

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On 26 October 1881, four men – gambler and lawman Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and his tubercular dentist friend Henry “Doc” Holliday – strode through the silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona, and advanced on an alley next to Fly’s Boarding House and Photography Studio, just west of the OK Corral.

Thirty seconds of gunfire later, two men were dead and another lay dying; over the years, what was, depending on your viewpoint, either a law enforcement operation or a triple homicide became romanticized as a heroic tale of good defeating evil.

That romanticization has colored virtually every cinematic portrayal of the gunfight, and 1993’s Tombstone is no exception. But whereas its predecessors often drowned under the weight of their own seriousness, Tombstone bursts off the screen with wit, humor and self-awareness that turn a tale of turpitude and mass murder into a feelgood thrill ride, complete with the good guy metaphorically riding off into the sunset with his true love.

Featuring Kurt Russell as Wyatt, ably supported by Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton as Virgil and Morgan, Tombstone is nonetheless fueled by Val Kilmer, in what is arguably his career apogee, as Doc.

Holliday was by many accounts hard to warm to and easy to anger; Kilmer reinvents him as a prickly, pallid but charismatic cad, a southern dandy with an apparent desire to hasten his already imminent demise with alcohol and gunplay.

His performance is given wings by screenwriter Kevin Jarre’s crackling dialogue, which combines with Kilmer’s delivery to elevate what could have been a paint-by-numbers western into a uniquely rollicking and uniquely quotable ride. One of the joys of regularly rewatching Tombstone is anticipating and echoing, Rocky Horror-like, the fusillade of Holliday’s bon mots.

Holliday repeatedly challenges nemesis Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) with a simultaneously cheery and malevolent “I’m your huckleberry,” the movie’s signature line that now adorns many a T-shirt. After he points a revolver at a member of the antagonistic Clanton gang, his target mocks him as too drunk to shoot straight, prompting him to produce another and declare that, “I have two guns. One for each of you.” When he produces a poker hand that fleeces cartoon villain Ike Clanton of his money, he declares, “Well, isn’t that a daisy?” and mocks his antagonist’s intelligence by suggesting, “Maybe poker’s just not your game. I know, let’s have a spelling contest.”

The real Gunfight at the OK Corral was a brief and sordid affair, part of an ongoing battle involving morally ambiguous actors on all sides. Tombstone reframes the story as a fable of family and friendship, with Russell’s Wyatt as its emotional fulcrum, weighing his fraternal responsibilities and sense of duty against his desire for a peaceful and prosperous life. When Wyatt, torn apart by Morgan’s subsequent murder and Virgil’s maiming at the hands of their foes, screams at Ike Clanton to “Tell ’em I’m coming, and hell’s coming with me,” he ushers in the final reel, as he, Holliday and associates wreak vengeance on Morgan’s killers and associates.

The historicity is inevitably uneven. Some of the dialogue, including Holliday’s aphorisms, is remarkably on point, and small details such as the Earps and Holliday drinking Old Overholt whiskey (reportedly Doc’s favorite tipple) and a dog barking as Morgan lies dying are scattered like Easter eggs for Old West buffs. Conversely, the scale of Earp’s vengeance is oversold and the climactic confrontation between Holliday and Ringo is spun from whole cloth; but, compared with earlier efforts such as 1946’s My Darling Clementine – which killed off Virgil before the Gunfight and Doc during it – Tombstone’s account is practically verbatim.

The key to enjoying Tombstone isn’t to grouse about the sordid story it could have told, but to luxuriate in the entertaining one it chooses to tell, to revel in its portrayal of matey bonhomie and its meta-narrative of wrestling order from chaos, and to be perpetually delighted, even on repeated viewings, by the parade of A-list appearances: Billy Zane! Dana Delaney! Jason Priestley! Billy Bob Thornton! Powers Boothe! Charlton Heston!

Do I like Tombstone any less because I am familiar with its historical shortcomings? Not even a bit; and nor am I alone. A number of years ago, suitably inspired by a series of whiskey-fueled rewatches, I spent some time visiting Tombstone itself, where I met the actor who strolled the streets as Doc. He modeled the character, he told me, not on the historical Holliday but on Kilmer’s portrayal – because it is that vision, not the gaunt, unlikable reality, that has lodged in popular imagination.

As Kilmer’s Doc might observe: “Well, isn’t that a daisy?”