Richard Dix as Wyatt Earp in "Tombstone: The Town Too Tough To Die" (1942)
132The legendary town of Tombstone, Arizona, attracts a motley combination of prospectors, ranchers and outlaws. In the late 1800s, Curly Bill Brocious (Edgar Buchanan), head of a gang of bandits and rustlers, controls the town lawmen, including Mayor Dan Crane (Charles Halton), and constantly terrorizes the town with his drunken rampages. The mythical former gunslinger Wyatt Earp (Richard Dix), renowned for cleaning out the lawless element from Dodge City, Kansas, comes to town with his brothers, Virgil Earp (Rex Bell), and Morgan Earp (Harvey Stephens). Crane challenges Wyatt to arrest Curly Bill, and is surprised when he complies.
Shortly thereafter, Curly Bill is released by the judge and immediately resumes his activities. Wyatt becomes a lawman after he sees an outlaw accidentally kill a child during a showdown. Earp's brothers and Doc Holliday (Kent Taylor) help him take on the outlaw and his gang. Wyatt agrees to stay on as Sheriff.
Curly Bill stays out of Tombstone because Wyatt posts restrictions that curtail his fun, and more trouble ensues when he threatens to kill Crane unless he arranges to lure Wyatt to his saloon. When a stranger named Johnny Duane (Don Castle) comes to his saloon, Curly Bill forces Crane to hire him to pose as the tax assessor, and Crane tells Wyatt that he must accompany Johnny to enforce the tax collection. When they force Curly Bill, the Clantons, Phineas Clanton (Don Curtis) and Billy Clanton (Craig Lawrence as James Ferrara), and the McLowerys, Frank McLowery (Dick Curtis), Tom McLowery (Paul Sutton) to pay their taxes, and then repel an attack by the same, the outlaws vow revenge.
Wyatt, meanwhile, realizes that Johnny intends to rob him of the tax money and turn it over to Curly Bill, and he appeals to Johnny's better nature to relent. Johnny returns to Curly Bill without the money, but informs him of a silver shipment, which they then rob. Wyatt, hoping to reform Johnny, sends for his former girl friend, Ruth Grant (Frances Gifford), whom he left because she wanted him to go straight. Johnny again rebuffs Ruth until she pretends to work as a hostess at the Bird Cage Theatre. Concerned for her safety, Johnny promises to marry Ruth and go straight.
The Clantons and McLowerys call for a showdown with the Earps at the O.K. Corral, and the Earps's friends, Doc Holliday and Tadpole Foster (Clem Bevans), fight alongside them. Wyatt tries to arrest the outlaws, rather than fight them, but the outlaws only pretend to comply, and then start shooting. Morgan is killed, as are many of the outlaw gang, and Crane has Wyatt and his brothers indicted for murder, claiming that he shot first while the Clantons' had their hands up. The court dismisses the charges on the basis that Wyatt has done a service to the community by killing the outlaws, but Crane then dismisses him as sheriff. After one of the Clanton gang murders Virgil, Wyatt hires on as a federal marshal. Curly Bill tries to lure Johnny, who has been working an honest job, back into the gang by giving him a share of his proceeds from the previous robbery, but Johnny turns it over to Wyatt and joins him in a plan to entrap Curly Bill and his gang at their next robbery attempt. A shootout during the robbery between the two factions results in Curly Bill's death, and, with the criminal elements finally brought to justice, Wyatt abandons his job as peacekeeper and heads for California.
A 1942 American Black & White Western film, directed by William C. McGann, produced by Harry Sherman, screenplay by Albert S. Le Vino and Edward E. Paramore Jr., story by Charles Reisner and Dean Riesner, based on Walter Noble Burns' "Tombstone: An Iliad of the Southwest" (1927), cinematography by Russell Harlan, starring Richard Dix, Kent Taylor, Edgar Buchanan, Frances Gifford, Don Castle, Clem Bevans, Rex Bell, and Victor Jory. It's one of Paramount's A Westerns, and it shows in Russell Harlan's brilliant outdoors photography.
Richard Dix and Kent Taylor co-starred in "Men Against the Sky" (1940). Charles Stevens played Indian Charley in three films based on the Wyatt Earp legend: "Frontier Marshal" (1939), this film, and "My Darling Clementine" (1946). Director William C. McGann had a hand directing two more features, then spent the last decade of his career working in the special effects department.
Not all of the Earp brothers who were in Tombstone are in this film, and Doc Holliday is completely healthy, but none of the filmed versions of this western tale have ever been totally accurate.
Stuart Lake’s biography "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal" was a best-seller in the 1930s, elevating Earp to hero status, and Fox’s film version, "Frontier Marshal" (1939), was a considerable box-office hit. Paramount wanted a bit of that action, put together this Wyatt Earp tale and released it in the summer of ’42.
Tightly paced, rousing action, full of rock-solid actors, but no big stars, this unheralded little gem of a western moves like lightning.