"Law and Order" (1932), a film starring Walter Huston and Harry Carey, had blazed the Earp screen trail with a brave version of the 0. K. Corral happenings, although the true-life characters were never named "Frontier Marshal" (1939) starring Randolph Scott and "Wichita" (1955) with Joel McCrea also told the story <br /><br />To most modern cinema-goers, however, the Corral incident and the confused events and motivations which led to it have been best served by four films, John Ford's "My Darling Clementine" (1946), John Sturges' "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," (1957), Sturges' "Hour of the Gun" (1967), and George P. Cosmatos' "Tombstone" (1993). But the question has yet to be solved: should the American West be depicted on the screen as it actually was, or should it continue to be a form of mythology? <br /><br />Hollywood's version of history is considerably at variance with the facts, and life on the frontier in the 19th century would appear to have been more dull and monotonous than exciting and colorful Certainly, life in Tombstone, Arizona, in its time of greatest prosperity as a mining town must have been anything but healthy, with its vast number of rough working men relieving their boredom with drinking and brawling, and occasionally shooting each other<br /><br />In Kasdan's epic Western, Earp is the upright defender of the law, and Doc, a dissolute gambler Nevertheless, the men are compassionate and respectful, and both have a kind of dignity Holliday is much more credible as the black sheep of an aristocratic Virginia family and a jaded idealist Dennis Quaid allowed himself to lose 30 pounds of his weight only to accurately portray the gun-notorious Doc Holliday, now, alas devoted to the bottle and in the latter stages of tuberculosis<br /><br />In this instance we have Quaid breathing fire and fury at the slightest hint of an insult before breathing more heavily into his handkerchief He's a multi-dimensional human being who provides most of the film's best moments His character has his own form of ability Quaid does a far better work of portraying the effects of Holliday's tuberculosis Kilmer, in "Tombstone," never seems to have anything worse than a bad flu, except when it's dramatically necessary for him to look bad in greater degree <br /><br />Earp (Kevin Costner) finds Doc sincere but nevertheless strikes up an understanding which one feels will blossom into grudging joint gun-action should the need arise The need is obviously there in villainous Clantons and McLaurys The path is well and truly pointed to that rendezvous at the Corral<br /><br />Kasdan's motion picture covers areas of Earp's life that George P. Cosmatos' film "Tombstone" does not even touch While "Tombstone" was an action picture, centering on the events leading up to and including the famous gunfight, Lawrence Kasdan's "Wyatt Earp" focused on the man himself and his life from childhood to the confrontation and beyondThe film starts with the teenage Earp and progresses through old age <br /><br />The action in Kasdan's film is firm and fresh, nicely photographed and the story well told But we always remember Ford's "My Darling Clementine" for its other qualitiesfor the unhurried lulls and the 'time off' taken on the way This is Ford indulging himself, as was his habit, but on this occasion the indulgences all come off and are imparted with magic<br /><br />"My Daring Clementine" was a film of touchesFonda, seated, adjusting his boots and his balance while the world, such as it is, goes by; Fonda, the peacemaker, right-and-properly in church; Fonda, with an old-world frontier concept of courtesy leading his lady in the out of doors dance<br /><br />Earp in Kasdan's biopic is an ordinary man who met and married a beautiful young woman who died of typhoid a short time after the marriage Profoundly bitter about her death, he goes from a drunken fellow to horse thief to buffalo hunter to stagecoach driver to Dodge City, Kansas where he became one of the most famous "Westerners" of all time...