The general feeling I got from reading many reviews when "Wyatt Earp" was first released was that it was just simply DULL.

Open Range is a simply brilliant Western. Gorgeous cinematography. Great acting, good story. One of my top 5 westerns.

It's a good film but think you have to be interested in the subject matter of Earp. If just a casual movie gooer I can see that Tombstone would be a better draw. I prefer Tombstone myself even though it's more pulpy than Wyatt Earp.

2nd that recommendation on Open Range. In fact, I think I'll watch it again this weekend.

I ran across this video the other day and thought of this thread:

I think both films took "liberties" in the historical stuff and they follow the same "stretching of the truth" that Hollywood always does. Case in point is that Ringo was not killed by anyone. He shot himself under a tree.

And Earp was a blonde haired blue eyed guy!

*Laughs in Buckskin Frank Leslie*

Historical inaccuracies aside, I think the bottom line is that cinematically, Tombstone simply worked while Wyatt Earp did not.

Even though I've read that Wyatt Earp never used a long-barrelled Colt, I couldn't resist getting this when a guy offered it to me dirt cheap at a gunshow in Fort Smith a few years ago. It's a replica made by Uberti of the 10-inch barrelled movie gun Kirt Russell used in the Tombstone OK corral shootout. I took it to the range right after I got it and every shot keyholed in the target telling me why I got it so cheap. I was able to slug the barrel and reload with a slightly larger diameter bullet which solved the issue. However, I didn't really get it to shoot that much since I have a half dozen other SAA's for that. I ordered the special case from Cimarron firearms since they also sell this particular reproduction.

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Cheers

P.S. Here's what the S & W Model 3 looks like. This is the Schofield version used by the US Cavalry, but the only major difference between it and a commercial model is in the way the top latch opens.

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