Movie Review: Tombstone

(This is the third installment in our series of reviews on classic Westerns inspired by the Gunfight at the OK Corral. We encourage you to read the first and second installments)

The third of our movies taking the gunfight at the OK Corral as their inspiration is also the latest one, Tombstone from 1993, considered by many fans to be among the best western movies ever made. I’m skipping over John Sturges’ 1967 Hour of the Gun. This sequel to Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a fine film and James Garner and Jason Robards are a good team as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I recommend the picture, but Sturges had already dealt with these characters and the story is actually about Earp’s vengeance killings after the fact.

In Tombstone, Kurt Russell stars as Wyatt and Val Kilmer is Doc. Both men turn in the performances of their lives and the fact that they didn’t win Oscars is explained somewhat by all the Gumping that was going on that year. The fact that neither of them was even nominated is less understandable. Taking this praise one step further, Russell has been unofficially credited with ghost directing over half the picture when original director Kevin Jarre (who wrote the script) was fired and before credited director George P. Cosmatos came onboard.

“Tombstone” covers the same ground as the two earlier movies, and then some. The big shootout scene comes with over an hour of running time left. The bushwhack shooting of Virgil Earp (Sam Elliott) and Morgan Earp (Bill Paxton) are still to come, followed by Wyatt’s vengeance ride as he and four friends—Holliday, Sherman McMasters (Michael Rooker), Texas Jack Vermillion (Peter Sherayko) and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson (Buck Taylor)—go after the cowboy gang.

The movie comes closer to historical accuracy than did either of the others we’ve looked at. When the three Earps arrive with their wagons, wives, and dreams of fortune, none of the men want anything to do with maintaining law and order. Wyatt immediately runs a bullying gambler (a chunky Billy Bob Thornton) out of the Oriental Saloon and talks himself into a job as Faro dealer.

The brothers—at least this time James isn’t portrayed as a teenager and the weak branch on the family tree; in fact, he isn’t even in town this time, joining Warren Earp, the perennially missing man, among Hollywood’s unnecessary characters—meet old acquaintance Doc Holliday on the street. Wyatt and Morgan are glad to see him. Virgil doesn’t like him, but does tolerate his presence.

This time out the cowboys are not just thieves, rustlers and killers; they are Satan’s emmisarries on Earth. The first time we see them, they kill everyone in a wedding party, including the bride and priest. They are led by Curly Bill Brocius (Powers Booth) and Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) and abetted by Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan (Jon Tenney). Ike Clanton (Stephen Lang) is portrayed as a hanger-on and coward.

The Earps and cowboys hate each other but manage to co-exist for over a year; and then with great power comes a great lack of responsibility. When Curly Bill drunkenly murders the town marshal, beating the rap in court, and other cowboys shoot up the town and endanger the lives of women and children, Virgil has had enough and goes to the mayor (Terry O’Quinn) and accepts the marshal’s job. Morgan follows, but Wyatt, still wanting to do nothing but make money and carry on an extramarital affair with the actress Josie Marcus (Dana Delaney) refuses to be deputized.

He will soon change his mind.

Tombstone blends thematic elements from the first two OK Corral movies, but they are traditional themes from the history of western fiction: the fact that sooner or later freedom will have to be exchanged for progress, and the strong bond between men, whether they be brothers or friends.

And the friendship between Wyatt and Doc is much stronger here than we’ve seen it before. During Wyatt’s vengeance ride one of the men on the posse asks the obviously ailing Doc Holliday why he’s endangering his health by going along. “Because Wyatt Earp is my friend.” “Friend?” the man says, “Hell, I got lots of friends.” “I don’t,” Doc replies.

You breathe a sigh at the end of Tombstone and feel like what you’ve just seen should have been history, and that maybe it was. It isn’t, of course, but it comes close enough for the casual viewer. So close, in fact, that if you follow up a screening of the movie with a book about the events surrounding the gunfight, you’ll feel like you’re in familiar territory.

And if you ever visit Tombstone, AZ, you’ll feel something like a lover of the King Arthur legends feels when visiting Tintagel Castle. You can walk through the Bird Cage Theater and the OK Corral and know just why it’s so important to print the legend.

- Doug Bentin

(Doug writes film reviews for eFilmCritic! and book reviews (mostly Westerns) for Bookgasm. His personal blog is The Long Saturday of the Soul).

Movie Review: Gunfight at the OK Corral

(This is the second installment in our series of reviews on classic Westerns inspired by the Gunfight at the OK Corral. For the first part of this series, click here)

The second of the three movies we’re looking at that chronicle the events leading up to the gunfight at the OK corral is, well, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. That makes it easy to remember.

Directed by John Sturges in 1957, the picture stars Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp, and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday. John Hudson, DeForest Kelley (yup, Dr. “Bones” McCoy from “Star Trek”) and Martin Millner tag along as Virgil, Morgan and James Earp. Lyle Bettger is Ike Clanton and Dennis Hopper is his little brother (son in real life) Billy. John Ireland, who played Billy Clanton in the 1946 My Darling Clementine, is Johnny Ringo. Rhonda Fleming is Laura Denbow, the gal Wyatt will love and leave behind, and Jo Van Fleet is Holliday’s sometime girlfriend (Big Nose) Kate Fisher. The script is by Leon Uris, who will later gain fame as the author of the bestsellers “Exodus,” “Topaz,” and “QB VII.”

The movie opens with one of those terrible songs that will make your kids roll their eyes when they hear it. Sung by Frankie Laine, it’s the kind of thing Mel Brooks parodied so mercilessly in “Blazing Saddles.” There’s no way not to grin at lyrics like “If the Lord is my friend, I’ll see you at the end of the Gunfight at the OK Corral.” Once it gets revved up, though, you can tell the score is by the great Dimitri Tiomkin.

Like the earlier “My Darling Clementine,” GOKC is a legend western that takes bits and pieces of actual western history and mixes them with pulp and romance to create a story that might look like it’s true but wouldn’t fool anyone who’d seen a 30-minute TV documentary on the affair.

The picture opens 10 years before the events in Tombstone as lawman Wyatt Earp is chasing cattle thief Ike Clanton through Ft. Griffin, Texas. Against his better judgment, Wyatt saves Doc Holliday from a lynch mob. Back in Dodge City, Doc loses Kate to Johnny Ringo and helps Wyatt arrest Shanghai Pierce (Ted de Corsia), who really has nothing to do with the story (nor did he in real life) but has such a great western name Uris just had to use it.

And speaking of nothing-to-do-with-it, Wyatt meets and falls in love with gambling lady Laura Denbow (the gorgeous Fleming). When he gets word from his brothers in Tombstone that they need his help, he tells the gal he loves her but he has to go to his family.

As it is with so many western movies, friendship and loyalty among men is the central theme here. Sturges would continue to mine this vein in years to come as the director of “Last Train From Gun Hill,” “The Magnificent Seven,” and “The Great Escape.” The film admits that the civilizing influence of women is necessary, but secondary to the responsibility imposed on a man by the willing acceptance of male friendship.

Unlike the case with “My Darling Clementine,” this movie pays at least lip service to the city/county politics at play in Tombstone. Wyatt asks for an appointed as U.S. Marshal so he will have jurisdiction over the entire county and can thus pursue the Clantons to their ranch out of town.

Since Wyatt has been chasing Ike Clanton for years, tempers flair when the two clans of inseparable brothers clash, resulting in the ambush death of James Earp, once again played as the baby brother of the family. His murder is the catalyst that causes the big shootout.

Douglas makes a far more believable Doc Holliday than the husky Victor Mature. We can see more clearly in this man the “too-lateness” and world-weary despair that pushes Doc into deadly situations. Our sadness at the waste of such a person is heightened by Lancaster’s holier-than-thou reading of Earp’s character. He’s constantly lecturing Doc on the evils of drunkenness, and while Doc goes out of his way to stand by Wyatt, when the gunfight is over and Earp sees plainly that Doc is dying, he still saddles up and rides away, leaving the consumptive gunman to find his own way.

The movie tries a little too hard to be an epic—a fault that would be noticeable in much of Sturges’ later work--but it is mostly enjoyable. Just remember that you can’t merely check your sense of history at the door—you have to lock it away in a trunk in the attic.

- Doug Bentin

(Doug writes film reviews for eFilmCritic! and book reviews (mostly Westerns) for Bookgasm. His personal blog is The Long Saturday of the Soul).

Saddlebums Interview: Win Blevins

Win Blevins has a passion for the West and it shows in his writing. He lives a conscious and vibrant life in the rural Southwest. His first novel, Charbonneau: Man of Two Dreams, was published in 1975 and since then he has produced thirteen more novels, sold five screenplays, written history, and even published a dictionary. He won the Spur Award for his novel Stone Song, and he has achieved both critical acclaim as well as a devoted readership.

His latest novel A Long and Winding Road has recently been released in hardcover by Forge Books. The Publishers Weekly review reads, in part: Blevins is a master of mountain man lore, and he certainly knows the beaver and buffalo hide business, as well as the politics of the region and era.

First, I want to thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions Win.

You're welcome.

I want to talk a little about your publishing history, what is the first novel you published? Was it a long time coming, or did you hit print pretty quickly once you decided to write it?

My first novel was CHARBONNEAU: MAN OF TWO DREAMS, way back in 1975. It was the story of the life of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacajawea. It was bad luck—the publisher went out of business a couple weeks after it was published. Still in print, though.

My first book was two years earlier, GIVE YOUR HEART TO THE HAWKS: A TRIBUTE TO THE MOUNTAIN MEN. It's history told in the style of fiction, like Irving Stone’s MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS. I had a stroke of luck getting that first book published. The head of Nash Publishing, Ed Nash, heard me telling mountain man stories at a party. He asked me to turn them into a book, and I did. No struggles, no rejections, all too easy.

It turned out that the company didn't have the money to print enough copies to fill all the orders, and that hurt the book. However, it too is still in print. Best compliment a writer can get.

When I was a kid, my friends fantasized about being Superman. I wanted to be Clark Kent. Digging out stories and writing them for a newspaper, that sounded like fun.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

When I was a kid, my friends fantasized about being Superman. I wanted to be Clark Kent. Digging out stories and writing them for a newspaper, that sounded like fun. I got to do that for some years.

Is there a book, or a few books, that you have written and are particularly proud of?

I love all my children. Maybe my favorite is the one that (as with children) was the most troublesome. I worked on the story of the life of Crazy Horse for twenty years. He was an infatuation and an obsession. His way of seeing Mystery became mine. When the book came out in 1995, the reception was extraordinary.

Most writers are voracious readers, and I'm wondering what you read for pleasure?

I read mysteries and thrillers, and sometimes poetry. When I'm writing, which is always, it's difficult for me to read literature that has a superb style—the voice tries to creep into my own work. So I read for fun. And believe that fun is a splendid achievement in a novel.

I read a lot about the West, but not many traditional, action-adventure westerns. I prefer history, journals, and novelists who are unusual. I like Ed Abbey's THE BRAVE COWBOY, John Nichols's THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR (yes, it is a western—it's a battle over water rights), Tony Hillerman (they’re westerns as much as mysteries), Rudolfo Anaya, Scott Momaday, Wallace Stegner, Ivan Doig, Cormac McCarthy, and the historical novels of Larry McMurtry. If I was stranded in the desert with only one book about the West, I’ hope it would be Norman Maclean's A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT.

I avoid books in the endless succession of western clichés—the cavalry saving white folks from Indians, cattlemen vs. sheepmen, trail drive stories, tales of how AMERICANS CONQUERED THE WEST or TAMED THE WILDERNESS. Some of those books are terrific. However, it's been done, and to me it's not the story of the real West—it's just self-glorification. Also, it mostly leaves out women, Mexicans, Mormons, mountain men, and any genuine look at Indian people, in short the real West.

Your biography is impressive in its own right as an adventure story: You have climbed mountains, sailed, river-rafted, lost the use of your legs and then regained them. If you could, what was your most memorable adventure?

Most memorable? Well, there are two kinds—the ones that were the most fun and the ones that nearly got me killed. In the fun category—climbing Mont Blanc, my first big mountain; climbing everything I ever climbed with my two lifelong friends, Hooman Aprin and Leeds Davis; making the circuit around Annapurna in Nepal; floating the San Juan River a dozen times or more. Life-threatening? I took a fall into a crevasse on Mount Rainier and had a hard time getting out. And I froze my feet badly on Mount Jacinto near Palm Springs. Yes, Palm Springs, that's why I wasn’t expecting such a blizzard.

I love Westerners, who are the damnedest combination of savvy, plucky, bull-headed, thoughtful, ignorant, super-educated, maddening people on the planet. Their thinking doesn't run down the tracks laid by the NEW YORK TIMES—because it's original thinking (even when bonkers).

Now I want to turn to the Western genre specifically. What first led you to the genre?

I am fascinated by the West. I love the landscape, and try to make it the main character in every book. I love Westerners, who are the damnedest combination of savvy, plucky, bull-headed, thoughtful, ignorant, super-educated, maddening people on the planet. Their thinking doesn't run down the tracks laid by the NEW YORK TIMES—because it's original thinking (even when bonkers).

This love affair started when I spent a summer in Colorado, camping and hiking. It blew up big when I moved to Los Angeles and spent my week ends in the local mountains and deserts. When I came to the Canyonlands of the Utah-Arizona border in 1976, my heart was captured forever. I still live here.

Though professional writers are a rarity in my region, I feel like one maverick among many—Navajos, archeologists, artists, river rats, desert rats, a comradeship of individuality.

Are there any Western writers who have most influenced your work?

Sure, Mark Twain, Mark Twain, and Mark Twain. He was an extraordinarily intelligent fellow who wrote stories that appealed to the entire community, not just the literati. He wrote in the language of the common man. He was a genius, and he's my hero.

I've also been influenced greatly by the books of Bernard DeVoto, especially ACROSS THE WIDE MISSOURI and YEAR OF DECISION: 1846. If you want to learn to write history, read DeVoto.
A director of westerns gave me something to emulate. I want to jam pack my novels with the passion and originality of Sam Peckinpah's movies. THE WILD BUNCH and RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY are masterpieces.

I don't really have any models, though. I want to tell stories no one else has told. I'm trying to tell the biggest truth that I can see, and I have to see it for myself. I don't know whether this is a strength or a weakness.

If you could bring back the work of one Western writer who would it be? Is there a specific title?

I'd like more attention for some living writers who are underappreciated. Max Evans captures the contemporary West beautifully, and he's almost alone in that. Loren Estleman has a prose style that seethes with life. Richard Wheeler writes quiet, thoughtful, lovely novels. Craig Leslie and Jim Fergus are first-rate.

What do you think about the western genre today, and what do you think the future holds for the western story?

Write about the West and you'll be a pariah. Picture this: You're at a cocktail party with literary people in New York. An attractive young woman comes up and says, "What do you write?' You answer, "I write about the West." She makes her escape so fast you can feel the backdraft. She asks a nearby scribe what he writes. "Pornography," he answers. She smiles and says, "How fascinating. Tell me more."

Believe it.

I have no idea about the future of writing about the West. I know two things: 1) Every region of America is a first-rate subject for good writing, and in my opinion the West is the best of all, because the people are originals. 2) Good stories will always have an audience.

You not only write Western historical novels, but you also work as an editor for a New York publisher. Does this give you a different perspective on the genre?

I recently retired as an editor—clear sailing to do nothing but write from now on. During my editing years I learned that I can't predict what will sell and what won't, and that I love working with writers.

Different perspective? No. I'm not an ideal editor for westerns because my views about the West are personal and strongly held.

Everything I do in the West—drive, look at land forms, hike, swim a river in a life jacket, take my dog for a walk, visit ruins, listen to old-timers—everything finds its way into my books.

Your work is known for its historical accuracy. What role does research play in your writing, and how—if you do—do you compromise between the story and its historical roots?

Research is a big deal for me. In the mid 70s I was lucky enough to get some movie script money and could afford to spend a couple of years soaking up Western history like a sponge. I continue to read and read and check facts and check facts.

But that isn't the essence of research. For the Crazy Horse book I moved to Wyoming and stayed fifteen years (and am still in the rural West). I wanted to smell the air he smelled, wade the creeks he waded, make meat as he did, and so on. As it turned out, I also needed to do many sweat lodges, many vision quests, and other ceremonies. (His path is now mine; I became a pipe carrier.) The essence of research is experience, not book knowledge. If a writer hasn't been in a sweat lodge (and one celebrated Lakota hasn't), I can spot that within a couple of sentences. It destroys verisimilitude for me.

Everything I do in the West—drive, look at land forms, hike, swim a river in a life jacket, take my dog for a walk, visit ruins, listen to old-timers—everything finds its way into my books.

Yet even that kind of research only creates the world where the characters interact. Characters doing things that show who they are, and what human beings are like—that's the soul of fiction. That takes good observation of people, a nose for telling details, a sense of humor, and imagination. My novels, whether historical or contemporary, are acts of imagination in a thoroughly real world.

Compromise? No need. Oh my, just take a walk in the history of the West, or the streets of your own Western town, and you'll find truths begging to be told. Tell the truth and tell it loud.

You have written a broad variety of western fiction—from your novel Stone Song about Crazy Horse, to your chronicles of the early trappers, to contemporary western stories like your novel ravenShadow. Is there a particular era of western history you are most interested in?

If it's Western, historical or contemporary, I'm interested. If it's a story that hasn't been told and re-told, I may write it.

Maybe one day I'll expand that to, if it's American, I'm interested. I want to know who Americans are, from the splendid to the repulsive, and to sing it all in story form.

Okay, now let's get down to your current work. What is your latest novel?

For the past few years I've been writing mountain man novels called the RENDEZVOUS series. They follow the life of a single mountain man from when he leaves home in the East to when he retires as a trapper and settles in California with his half-blood children.

I wanted to write a series of stories that would show a character's growth from boy through marriage and children to the end of one kind of life; to tell the story of the great twenty years of the Rocky Mountain fur trade; to draw attention especially to the relationships (most of them very good) between the trappers and the Native people; to dramatize the difficulties of being of mixed blood in an Anglo world; and to explore some aspects of the fur trade era that are relatively unfamiliar, like the Indian slave trade.

Four of these novels have been published (the first won the Spur Award); the next, A LONG AND WINDING ROAD, comes out in December; and the final novel, DREAMS BENEATH YOUR FEET, is due in autumn of 2008.

Can you tell us about the novel—or any other projects—you are working on now?

I'm off on something entirely new, a series of novels we're informally calling THE PEOPLE WHO WOULD BECOME THE CHEROKEE. The books are set in the mists of pre-history, like Jean Auel's and Michael and Kathleen Gear’s. I don't know how many books will eventually comprise the series.

This is a lot of fun. They're pre-history, but little is known about the people who would become the Cherokees. So I'm taking a hard look at the culture in the 1500s and 1600s, our earliest knowledge of it, and imagining it backwards a few thousand years. This ancient culture will feel to modern readers like fantasy—it's full of shamans who can travel to the worlds above and below, spirit animals, magic, talking buzzards, enchanted caverns, etc. I guess the term for it would pre-historical fantasy.

Why the Cherokees? More than fifty years ago my aunts told me the family secret—we're Cherokee, and gave me some details. Since then I've had an avid curiosity about my unacknowledged ancestors. This is one way of getting to know them, and to pay tribute to them.

I have more ideas for books than I could write in a zillion lifetimes, and I love it that way. Life is grand and nutty and glorious—I'd like to get all of that into stories.

I have one last question, and I must warn it is a little vague. If you could chose any project to work on, what would it be?

I'd like to write poetry every day, and may soon get going on that. I'd like to write songs. I want to write a non-fiction paean to the grand country I live in. I'd like to write a couple of novels about the contemporary West in the Southwest, a zesty mixture of Anglos, Navajos, Pueblo people, Mexicans trying to make good lives around each other and in a world that is getting crazier by the day. I have more ideas for books than I could write in a zillion lifetimes, and I love it that way. Life is grand and nutty and glorious—I'd like to get all of that into stories.

THE SEA OF GRASS by Conrad Richter

This post marks the first in a new series here at Saddlebums: an occasional piece dealing with the finest western fiction ever written. These contributions will examine the circumstances of publication, the author, and discuss what went into these stories and why they are now ranked among the best. Richard S. Wheeler prepared the first in the series, and it examines Conrad Richter’s The Sea of Grass.

Richard S. Wheeler is the dean of the modern western story. His novels are tender, tough, critical, and original—he has tackled expansive historical dramas, such as Aftershocks, a masterful portrayal of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906; biographical novels like Trouble in Tombstone; mining camp stories, such as his Spur winning novel Vengeance Valley. He is also the author of the well-received Barnaby Skye series—the most recent title in the series is The Canyon of Bones—and his recently released autobiography, An Accidental Novelist, has been praised by readers and writers alike.

The Sea of Grass, by Conrad Richter, first appeared as a Saturday Evening Post serial in 1936, and was published by Alfred Knopf in 1937. It is still in print, from the University of Ohio Press. The novel might be called a traditional cattleman vs. nester story, but it is much more. It is narrated by young Hal Brewton, nephew of the story’s central figure, Jim Brewton, who runs cattle on a vast sea of grass near Salt Fork, which is probably in Texas but could be in New Mexico.

Jim Brewton’s enormous range is almost all public land; he owns only the water holes, and that makes him vulnerable to the nesters wanting to plow the lush grassland and plant crops, even though the land is arid. The opening lines of the novel introduce us to its theme:

That lusty pioneer blood is tamed now, broken and gelded like the wild horse and the frontier settlement. And I think that I shall never see it flowing through human veins again as it did in my Uncle Jim Brewton, riding a lathered horse across his shaggy range or standing in his massive ranch house, bare of furniture as a garret, and holding together his empire of grass and cattle by the fire in his eyes.

The fire in his eyes. There is the heart of the novel. At the beginning, with the arrival of Brewton’s mail-order bride Lutie, we discover a horde of nesters waiting to swarm over Brewton’s ranch. And supporting them is the federal attorney, and later judge, Brice Chamberlain, who sympathizes with the humble. Lutie does, too. She furiously tries to civilize the obdurate Brewton, adding graces to his home, bringing a son and daughter into the family, and taking him to Mass on Sundays, but there is no taming old Jim.

Eventually, she has a third child, a blond boy, as blond as Brice Chamberlain is blond, and soon after that she leaves Brewton, and her whereabouts are unknown for years. But Chamberlain remains in Salt Fork, calls in the army to defend the nesters, and soon the nesters are plowing up Brewton’s range. After a trial, when Chamberlain asks Brewton why his men ran off a nester named Boggs, Brewton has a surprising reply: "He was not run off because he wanted to settle those hundred-sixty acres but because of what he wanted to do with the land."

He goes on to say he has some charity for the nester. "But–"and his voice began to ring in the small, hushed courtroom, "when that nester picks country like my big vega, that’s more than seven thousand feet above the sea, when he wants to plow it up to support his family where there isn’t enough rain for crops to grow, where he only kills the grass that will grow, where he starves for water and feeds his family by killing my beef and becomes a man without respect to himself and a miserable menace to the territory, then I have neither sympathy nor charity!"

As the novel progresses, we learn that Brewton was right. At first, during a wet cycle, the nesters prosper, their crops bloom, and their life seems assured. But with the coming of a dry cycle, their hopes collapse and they flee, leaving a ruined grassland behind them.

The novel was written long before publishers narrowed the traditional western to men’s literature that resolves conflict through violence. And while there is some violence in the story, it is offstage and muted. More surprising was the veiled but unmistakable adultery theme in the novel, handled delicately for the Saturday Evening Post readership. Old Jim Brewton remains as obdurate and flinty as ever as he ages, and late in the novel it appears that he was defeated by his rival and enemy, Brice Chamberlain, after all. But then one day Lutie mysteriously reappears, as passionate and willful as ever, begins once again to civilize the old ranchhouse, and takes up residence as though she had never left. And not only does Brewton welcome her, he is triumphant, for her return marks the final defeat and disgrace of Chamberlain– but I will leave it to the reader to interpret the surprising conclusion.

Conrad Richter’s prose is lyrical and draws us into a world scarcely imagined by modern people. But even more of an asset is his gift of characterization. Lutie and Jim Brewton are as vivid as any characters ever set on a page. Brewton is harsh, rigid, and yet filled with his own code of honor, which he lives by at great cost to himself. Lutie is a visionary, wanting to better the world, not only the world of the settlers, but Brewton’s cruel world, and she sets out to do it in the face of his obdurate resistance. Brice Chamberlain, on the other hand, is an idealist and reformer– with a heart of clay. He’s not man enough to stand up to Brewton after stealing Brewton’s wife (he deserts her at the train station when she is leaving Brewton for him), and lives out his life knowing he is the lesser man.

Richter went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1951 for another frontier novel, The Town. He had grown up in Pennsylvania, but spent much of his life in the place he loved most, New Mexico.
The Sea of Grass is at or near the top of most lists ranking the greatest westerns.

—Richard S. Wheeler

Scouting the Web

1.- A number of published and novice Western writers have finally launched the much-anticipated anthology Where Legends Ride. For Western fans, this is particularly interesting since it includes short stories by many of the authors who regularly pen novels for UK publisher Robert Hale Publishers’ Black Horse Westerns, including Lance Howard (aka Howard Hopkins), I.J. Parnham and Ben Bridges (aka David Whitehead). You might know from reading this blog that Black Horse titles are hard to come by outside of the UK. This anthology provides readers a great opportunity to see what some of its writers are all about as well as sample Western fiction from new authors.

As their press release states: “Here you'll meet brave school-teachers, plucky widows, a battered wife, a stubborn mule and several folk who are seeking redemption. You'll feel the heat of the badlands, the chill of danger and the gut-wrenching of betrayal. The stories cover a broad range, from the poignant to the humorous and offer up some pleasant surprises for any reader who has never read a ‘western’ before.”

Where Legends Ride was hatched by the lively members of the Black Horse Westerns Yahoo group. To know more about the 14 short stories that comprise this anthology as well as the men and women behind them, visit the preview section of their website.

You can purchase the book here.

2.- The Los Angeles Times recently ran a nice profile of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner.

The reissue of an obscure book by Stegner, Discovery! The Search for Arabian Oil has stirred some controversy between the publisher and the author’s agent, who claims the release of this work-for-hire job for a group of oil companies does “a massive disservice” to the author’s legacy. Apparently, the edition is not Stegner’s original version but the company-sanitized text. The Los Angeles Times reports on it here and The Washington Post weighs in here. You can also read a review of the book.

Its publication coincides with the release of The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner. Edited by his son, Page Stegner, the book is said to provide an interesting glimpse at the vivid polemics between the author and some of his critics.

3.- For Western art fans, the November/December issue of Art of the West magazine as well as the December issue of the handsome Western Art Collector are out.

As I have said before, these publications are veritable catalogues of fine illustrations inspired by the West.

Movie Review: My Darling Clementine

(This past October 26 signaled the anniversary of the legendary Gunfight at the OK Corral. The episode has inspired numerous works of literature and, most notably, films. In the first installment of a series, Doug Bentin will take a look at some of the movies that have recreated this interesting chapter in the history of the West.

Doug writes film reviews for eFilmCritic! and book reviews (mostly Westerns) for the most indispensable website Bookgasm. His personal blog is The Long Saturday of the Soul - Saddlebums).

With Oct. 26 marking the anniversary of the Gunfight at the OK Corral—which is surely one of the half-dozen most iconic incidents in the history of the American West—I thought we might take a look at three easily accessible movies that were inspired by the famous shootout.

The oldest of the three is John Ford’s classic My Darling Clementine (1946).

It seems to me that there are three varieties of Western fiction: realistic, romantic, and legendary. None is superior to the others and which one plays best with you depends on what you’re in the mood for at the time. MDC is definitely legendary, drawing as it does on actual historical events, even though tossing its ingredients into the blender of Hollywood and working with the smoothed-out results.

Henry Fonda is Wyatt Earp. He and brothers Virgil (Tim Holt), Morgan (Ward Bond) and James (an uncredited Don Garner) are just passing through Tombstone, AZ, on their way to California with a herd of cattle. One night Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan ride into town and James is left behind to watch the herd. He is murdered in the rain and the cattle are rustled.

James is presented as the baby of the family, a mere 18, when in fact he was seven years Wyatt’s senior and didn’t die until 1926. Additionally, there was no herd and all four brothers had been living in Tombstone since at least 1879. James was the only brother not involved in the gunfight and in the movie his death is used as the motivating factor for Wyatt to pin on the marshal’s badge and rid the town of the evil, thieving, rustling, murdering Clanton gang.

It’s in town that Wyatt meets the gambler Doc Holliday (Victor Mature, giving one of his best performances, although he is a bit husky to suffer from tuberculosis). This is not the first time Holliday has appeared in a John Ford Western, but the most famous time he was called “Hatfield” in Stagecoach and played by the much more physically believable John Carradine.

Romantic complications ensue when a lady friend of Doc’s from long ago and far away shows up unexpectedly. Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs) has been following Doc deeper into the west as he’s been trying to avoid her. His motive is to release her from the pain of watching his disease waste him away. He’s taken up with a dance hall gal named Chihuahua (Linda Darnell). Her profession and ethnicity are indicative of just how far Doc Holliday, that fine surgeon and southern gentleman, has fallen. That symbolism is as faulty as turning a dentist into a surgeon.

As Doc runs away from Clementine, Wyatt moves toward her. Fonda was always good at portraying the hesitant man in affairs of the heart, too respectful of good women to make the first move, so Wyatt’s sort-of courtship sails slowly. It doesn’t really get under weigh until Doc removes a stray bullet from Chihuahua and reclaims some of his old pride, at which point Clementine seems more willing to let him go. Wyatt is as puzzled by her attitude as we are. He leans on the bar and asks the whiskey-server, “Mac, you ever been in love?” to which Mac replies, “No, I been a bartender all my life.”

The action part of the story heats up when one of gang leader Ike Clanton’s (Walter Brennan) sons is killed and Ike and the rest of his brood come into town to wrap up their feud with the Earps.

Even if you can’t keep the Earp brothers straight in your mind and have no idea that one called James wasn’t killed by rustlers, you know the movie is going south historically speaking when you see on James’ headstone that he was killed in 1882—a year after the famous gunfight took place.

Nothing is made of the tinder-box politics of Tombstone in the early 1880s. Many historians believe that at the root of the conflict was a scramble for economic dominance, much as was the case in the Lincoln Co. War.

But this movie isn’t trying to be historically accurate. It’s a movie about the Wild West being tamed. Cattle trails give way to churches. When Doc performs his surgery, he uses tables pushed together in the saloon, so the bar becomes a hospital. Doc is the sophisticated man racing toward death just as Wyatt is the rough neck turning to civilization. Only one of them will reach his goal.

My Darling Clementine is one of those westerns that use a sand grain of historical truth around which to grow a pearl of western legend. If historical inaccuracies drive you nuts, and you can’t appreciate a movie just for the purity of its movie-ness, you might have a hard time with this one. Otherwise, it’s a classic. Enjoy.

Forthcoming Westerns: December 2007

It’s a holiday weekend here in the United States, so I’m posting December’s upcoming Western releases a little early this month. The list, while not quite as impressive as the last few months, is pretty darn good. We have the usual suspects—a new Longarm, Gunsmith, Trailsman, and Slocum—and we also have a new Western from literary writer Thomas Eidson, and the plot—see below for the synopsis—sounds pretty good.

Leisure Books is releasing Tim Champlin’s latest novel, Devil's Domain, The Penguin Group is releasing a new Ralph Compton novel written by David Robbins—the same guy who writes Wilderness—as well as a new Vigilante novel by Jory Sherman, and there are six new Black Horse Westerns scheduled for release in the U.K.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. And maybe I’ll see you in the Western section in the local bookstore. Happy reading.

Synopsis for Devil's Domain:

There was a reason people called Andersonville Prison hell on earth. With more than thirty thousand Union soldiers held captive in the worst conditions possible, death and disease were daily visitors. If scurvy or starvation didn’t kill them, the guards would. Sergeant John Mulroy knows he’ll die if he doesn’t find some way to escape. Problem is, even if he does get out, his closest ally suffers bouts of madness and just may murder him anyway….

November 27th

Devil's Domain by Tim Champlin
Wilderness #54: Pure of Heart by David Thompson
Shower of Gold by Zane Grey
The Soldier’s Way by Dane Coolidge

December 4th

Ralph Compton’s Blood Duel by Ralph Compton & David Robbins
St. Agnes’ Stand by Thomas Eidson
The Trailsman #314: North Country Cutthroats by Jon Sharpe
The Vigilante: Santa Fe Showdown by Jory Sherman
Preacher’s / Fury of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
Rampage of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone

Synopsis for St. Agnes’ Stand:

July 1858: Nat Swanson, a bullet in his leg and bone-weary, flees across the New Mexico desert from a vengeful posse. Back in west Texas, he killed a man over a woman whose name he never knew, and now he’s on the run to California, his only hope for a new life the ranch deed in his pocket.

In a dry riverbed, Nat spots two overturned wagons surrounded by Apaches. The only sign of a survivor is his quick glimpse of an old woman’s face–a face that forces a stark decision. Nat can ride on and save himself, or stay and try to save the stranded and doomed party. Sister St. Agnes, huddled between the wagons with her fellow nuns and the orphans in their care, somehow knows that God will answer her prayers and send a savior to deliver them from evil.As death shadows the dusty arroyo, the forsaken canyon becomes a place of destiny where a courageous nun and an embattled man confront their fates together.

December 12th

Doubtful Canon by Johnny D. Boggs
Outlaws from Afar by Max Brand

December 15th

The Shopkeeper by James D. Best

Synopsis for The Gunsmith #313: Wildfire:

After a posse mistakes Clint Adams for a murdering pyromaniac who's scorched a path from Texas to New Mexico, he joins them on their hunt for the match-happy madman.

December 18th

The Gunsmith #313: Wildfire by J.R. Roberts
Longarm #350: Longarm and the Hangtree Vengeance by Tabor Evans
Slocum #347: Slocum’s Four Brides by Jake Logan

December 24th

The Flying Wagon by Ian Parnham
Lone Survivor by V.S. Meszaros

December 26th

The Horses: The Journey of Jim Glass by Bill Brooks

December 30th

Barbary Coast Gundown by James Gordon White
Find Madigan! By Hank J. Kirby
Justice for Crockett by Dale Graham
The Legend and the Man by Ben Nicholas
The Modoc Kid by Mark Bannerman
The Night Riders by Matt Laidlaw
Outcasts of Rebel Creek by Frank Bonham & Bill Pronzini
Sharpshooters and the Rainman by Ron Watkins
Twisted Bars by Max Brand
Wyoming Showdown by Jack Edwardes

Synopsis of The Bull Chop:

Jude Linsey is a young man who is content to live off his rich father's allowance. He ekes out the money in and out of Spooner's Drift by gambling, or fishing and hunting beaver in the high creeks of Shell Mountain. Then the town's bank gets robbed, and Jude is suddenly aware there's a chance to redeem himself with his family and friends. But the deceitful Sheriff Ingram Bere has to be considered: a man with a covetous eye and more than a lawful interest in Jude's welfare. To mull over his predicament, Jude takes to the timberline with his saddle-broke roan. But events change, and Jude has little choice but to pit his wits and guns against Bart and Dooley Susans' gang of hard-nosed, desperate killers.

Black Horse Westerns

December 31st

Manhunt in Quemado by Daniel Rockfern
Desolation Pass by Lance Howard
Hammer of God by Phillip McCormac
The Bull Chop by Abe Dancer
Wilde Country by Tyler Hatch
Judge Parker's Lawmen by Elliot Conway