Films on Sunday: Wyatt Earp & the Cowboy War & The Perfect Couple
The first is lively history of Wyatt Earp’s reputation from lawman to hitman; the second a modern police procedural at a fancy Nantucket estate that stops a wedding — decorated with a mob flash dance.
Wyatt Earp & the Cowboy War (Netflix)
What happened before and after the famed gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, is the story — not the half-minute exchange of bullets on October 26,1881 at a Tombstone horse barn.
For Wild West lovers this docudrama has plenty to love and is a feast for viewers. But it is also a morality tale that Donald Trump could learn from if he could think.
The firefight, intones conversational narrator, actor Ed Harris, becomes so big it is going to affect the future of America. Harris will be our helpful guide throughout six episodes. The story is also aided by several historians, including Douglas Brinkley, and an audio track laced with strains of opera, Mozart’s Requiem, and the William Tell Overture. But with so much action in front of us, it makes for total immersion into our past in all its bloody, dusty, grainy glory. What follows is an outline of events, spoiled, along with historical notes I have added about the most famous Earp — Wyatt.
The events themselves began seven months prior to the actual shootout at the OK Corral. A gang had robbed $26,000 in silver from a Wells Fargo stage coach (Mr. Wells and Mr. Fargo had a flourishing transport business) leaving several dead. The gang, calling itself ‘the Cowboys’, was lethal and mafia-like, run by a Trumpish, oversized blow-hard without conscience named Ike Clanton.
The Cowboys, explains Harris, were nothing like the good-guy types of John Wayne movies; they were robbers, murderers, and thieves who gave ranchers and herders a bad name. Cattle theft from Mexico was becoming big business and the Cowboys made a fortune. Besides the black market in cattle, however, Tombstone’s legitimate reputation was for silver extracted ‘in them thar hills’, over a billion dollars worth in 2024 money. Silver had turned Tombstone into the Paris of the desert, a mecca of wealth and culture in the middle of nowhere with libraries, bookstores, even an oyster bar. This theft of $26,000 in silver from the stage coach was a novel affront to the law.
Three Earp brothers did the peacekeeping in Tombstone, employed by Sheriff Johnny Behan. The oldest and youngest, Virgil and Morgan, and Wyatt, whose chief method of enforcement was his fist.
In the case of the coach robbery it was personal for Wyatt; one of the men killed was his friend. After some sleuthing, the Earps found out that a shooter in the robbery was a Cowboy gang member named Billy Leonard. Wyatt confronted Clanton who denied that his boys robbed the coach; in fact Ike turned the tables, falsely accusing Doc Holliday. Doc had saved Wyatt’s life in the past, and Wyatt wasn’t going to let his friend pay for a crime he didn’t do.
And this particular robbery set off alarms in other quarters. NYC banker, JP Morgan’s ambition to take over America’s failing railroads was in jeopardy if he couldn’t borrow capital. British financier, Lord Rothschilds, was chafing at our lawless border — could he risk funds on America?
Morgan didn’t want the stage coach robbery to start a trend in stealing silver, so he put up a $6000 reward for the capture of the robbers. In a coincidence, Billy Leonard was killed for another crime. Ike Clanton advanced on Wyatt for the promised reward, but there would be no payout. Clanton had played no part in Billy Leonard’s demise. Wyatt’s rejection of Clanton’s demand led to the famed shootout.
Clanton was now in a rage and drunk at the OK Corral. Chapter two offers a blow by blow of how the volley went down during 30 momentous seconds of firing. Several were wounded and the Earps were heros. Then Ike went on the offensive, blaming the brothers. It was all lies but Ike was an effective liar; public opinion of the Earps went from good to bad.
Coincident with the gun fight, James Garfield, U.S. President and popular (in the manner of JFK) was assassinated back East. The news spread to England, where Lord Rothschilds was doubting U.S. stability. Not a good omen for JP Morgan’s railroad plans.
Also, Sheriff Behan got some news that turned him against his Earps police force. It was a sex scandal, quite a juicy story, proving the dictum that truth is stranger than fiction. Behan got his revenge by charging the three Earps and Doc Holliday with murder; the sides lawyered up.
The banks, financiers, and mine owners opposed to Ike’s gang violence supported the Earps and got them a lawyer who scheduled a preliminary hearing before a judge. (Judge Tanya Chutkan had hopes a Trump Jan 6 preliminary hearing would take place before our election — no such luck.)*
Back in the day, however, the world press came to the Earps’ hearing — Ike Clanton had himself an international audience. Even Sheriff Behan, enraged by the sex scandal, lied on the stand. Ike threatened witnesses and master of fable that he was, the case went back and forth (DJT, note how things worked out in the end for your braggadocious predecessor).
Oddly, the shootout at the OK Corral was beginning to look like a North/South Civil War thing. After war’s end, many Southerners had moved to the territories (eg Arizona). One such was Ike Clanton’s daddy, who had been a Confederate soldier. The Earps were northerners; Virgil had fought with the Union army.
It took a while but some convincing witnesses eventually turned up to rebut the made-up testimony of Ike and Behan. Case dismissed. It was Christmas and Tombstone was peaceful briefly. Then Ike launched and carried out death threats, leading Wyatt to send his girlfriend, Josephine, and remaining family to California and beginning his famous vendetta ride. Soon accused of murder, Wyatt had turned his coat from lawman to hitman. Anarchy was taking over, finally forcing the new (and corrupt) president to take action.
By law, President Chester Arthur couldn’t use the army, but he formed an unaffiliated unit he called ‘rangers’, and told Ike to leave Arizona or be killed. Wyatt and Doc Holliday got advice also (from Wells Fargo execs) to give up their vendetta ride. They did, taking the train out of town for good. Ike didn’t just go away — he dealt a final blow. If he couldn’t have Tombstone, no one else could either. A fire burned it to the ground and Ike met his maker.
JPMorgan was then able to make his move on the railroads. He eventually turned them into engines of industry, shipping goods, resources, and people all over the country. Law and order began to take hold, the West was tamed, the rails having made a major contribution.
As lightly evidenced in this series, Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) was not the noble hero his laundered reputation may suggest.** His occupations included thief, gambler, brothel keeper, pimp, hitman. He was described in a Peoria, Ill paper as a man of poor character who was a chronic lawbreaker. The Earps moved around to escape their reputation, including Dodge City, Deadwood, Fort Griffin, Tombstone, San Diego. Notorious when alive, a 1931 biography improved Wyatt’s reputation as a lawman. Later in life he consulted on Wild West films in Hollywood and died at 80.
Wyatt had three wives. Josephine Marcus with whom he lived for 50 years, was an actress who had her own history of mis-doings, including brothel madam. She buried him in her family plot at a Jewish cemetery in California where she herself was later interred (1944).**
*https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/26/jack-smith-trump-investigation-dossier-00181108
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyatt_Earp
The Perfect Couple (Netflix)
This limited series, not more to think about than on a coach ride or a beach read, has a dance theme: Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals”, performed by the cast in a flash mob that appears early and often with exuberant delight throughout six episodes. It’s a tell that this murder mystery is more about the people, their pretentions, and the place, a $40 million dollar waterfront estate in exquisite Nantucket, resplendent in raspberry reds and salmon pinks, than about a police procedural and a murder that gets wrapped up at the end. By then we have suspected everyone in that flash mob and who did the crime turns out to be not a thing.
Based on a best-seller by Elin Hilderbrand and directed by Emmy and Oscar winner, Susanne Bier, the story turns on a weekend wedding that is planned but not executed because someone turns up dead. The police are a cute group, weaving in and out as clues, such as a diamond bracelet, are brought to their attention by party-goers, willing to implicate another.
The cast is full of stars led by Nicole Kidman as famed novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, and Liev Schreiber, her spouse Tag Winbury, whose estate has been in the family for five generations (Liev delivers Tag’s lines fine but he doesn’t seem the part of the waspy trust-funded). Add in Meghann Fahy (White Lotus), Dakota Fanning, glamorous French actress, Isabelle Adjani, and the engrossing Eve Hewson (daughter of Bono) for whom this outing in which she is center stage, may become her American celebrity launch.
Greer, ever mindful of her image, has scheduled the launch of her latest novel as a book party midst the weekend wedding crowd, also to be spoiled (by humiliating revelations rather than murder). Greer curates every minute of her life, and her brood, three handsome boys including Sam Nivola of White Noise, as well as Tag, readily submit.
Kidman has developed a formula for actresses and directors, growing work opportunities for women; yet her choice of material is thin, if clever. However, if Elin Hilderbrand’s novels are your thing and you are looking for some mindless, if clever entertainment, this one will pass the time.