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The Rewatchables ·

Tombstone

year 1993decade 90sdirector George P. Cosmatosgenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Sean Fennesseyhost Chris Ryan
All 14 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 21:03

The 'hell's coming with me' scene followed by the killing montage

The nominated choices open with Wyatt Earp confronting a heavier Billy Bob Thornton near the beginning, the 'skin that smoke wagon' exchange played as a clip; Earp completely emasculates him and then tells the bartender he is taking 25% of the house; Thornton's grumbling just before, about playing cards with his brother's kids, is also loved and called a good heat check.

More nominees: the first OK Corral shootout and Kurt Russell's 'hell's coming with me' speech, played as a clip and followed by a montage of them killing people; the creek shootout, Russell's version of Larry Bird walking on water in the 1987 playoffs; and Kilmer versus Michael Biehn, one-on-one at the end.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:04:13

"I never saw a rich man that didn't have a guilty conscience. I already have a guilty conscience. I might as well have the money too"

Nominated: 'I never saw a rich man that didn't have a guilty conscience. I already have a guilty conscience. I might as well have the money too'; the way Kurt Russell tells the sheriff he does not think he will let him arrest them today (the sheriff's name is garbled in the transcript); and 'Make no mistake. It's not revenge. she's after. It's the Reckoning' (as transcribed), which one host applied to a colleague after Grantland was blown away.

The film

Tombstone (1993)

Directed by George P. Cosmatos · Drama

130 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Kurt Russell Wyatt Earp
Val Kilmer Doc Holliday
Sam Elliott Virgil Earp
Bill Paxton Morgan Earp
Powers Boothe "Curly Bill" Brocius
Michael Biehn Johnny Ringo
Charlton Heston Henry Hooker
Jason Priestley Billy Breakenridge
Jon Tenney Sheriff Johnny Behan
Stephen Lang Ike Clanton
Thomas Haden Church Billy Clanton
Dana Delany Josephine Marcus
Paula Malcomson Allie Earp
Lisa Collins Louisa Earp
John Philbin Tom McLaury
Dana Wheeler-Nicholson Mattie Blaylock
Joanna Pacuła Big Nose Kate
Michael Rooker Sherman McMasters
Harry Carey Jr. Marshal Fred White
Billy Bob Thornton Johnny Tyler
Tomas Arana Frank Stilwell
Paul Ben-Victor Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz
Frank Stallone Ed Bailey
Robert John Burke Frank McLaury
Billy Zane Mr. Fabian
John Corbett Johnny Barnes
Buck Taylor John "Turkey Creek Jack" Johnson
Terry O'Quinn Mayor & Publisher of Tombstone Epitaph John Clum
Peter Sherayko John "Texas Jack" Vermillion
Wyatt Earp III [ b ] Billy Claiborne
Robert Mitchum Narrator

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

15:19

Roger Ebert's review
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:19Read transcript
  • Ebert gave it three stars and really liked it, singling out Val Kilmer's (transcribed 'Valcomer') portrayal as the definitive saloon cowboy of our time; years later he felt a little agonized that he had not fought harder for Tombstone, and Siskel gave it a thumbs down.
  • In his review of Kurt Russell's Dark Blue, Ebert wrote that every time he sees Russell or Val Kilmer in a role he is reminded of Tombstone, which got lost in the year-end holiday shuffle and never got the recognition it deserved.
  • Ebert is declared to be making a big comeback on the show, lights out over the last eight movies and the greatest pop movie critic in the history of the medium; another voice objects that he was never an underdog and that this framing of him is unfair and weird.
  • A further remark concedes Ebert had some bad takes.
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41:01

Casting What-Ifs

Kevin Costner was to be Wyatt Earp before leaving for Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp; Richard Gere as Wyatt Earp and Wi...

Kevin Costner was to be Wyatt Earp before leaving for Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp; Richard Gere as Wyatt Earp and Willem Dafoe as Doc Holliday were nearly cast, with Buena Vista vetoing Dafoe over The Last Temptation of Christ; Mickey Rourke turned down Johnny Ringo

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:41:01Read transcript
  • Costner was supposed to be Wyatt Earp; according to Kurt Russell the film was nearly cast with Richard Gere as Wyatt and Willem Dafoe as Doc Holliday, but Buena Vista refused Dafoe as blowback from The Last Temptation of Christ five years earlier; thank God, since Dafoe is a great actor but not Doc Holliday.
  • Mickey Rourke was almost cast as Johnny Ringo and turned it down; as good as Biehn is, one host thinks it would have been a cool Rourke role, while another thinks that with Cosmatos coming in amid the turmoil it would have been one too many cooks, Rourke deciding he was really directing the movie and going full iso ball like Carmelo in OKC.
  • Production history: Costner was originally involved but disagreed with Kevin Jarr (as transcribed) over the focus, believing the emphasis belonged on Wyatt Earp rather than the many characters; he bowed out and teamed with a then red-hot Lawrence Kasdan on a competing film, Jarr proved a disaster, and this still ended up the better movie.
  • Costner was the biggest star in the world then, coming off Dances with Wolves; in a True West magazine interview Russell told of Costner giving his blessing, the host thinking that was because Jarr had written Dances with Wolves, yet blocking any deal except with Disney's adult label Buena Vista, which then had its own say over who could be cast, Costner throwing his weight around.
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43:58

Half-Assed Internet Research

All the mustaches were real; Val Kilmer practiced his quick draw and gave Doc a Southern aristocrat accent; 'I'll be ...

All the mustaches were real; Val Kilmer practiced his quick draw and gave Doc a Southern aristocrat accent; 'I'll be damned' really were Doc Holliday's last words; the real Johnny Ringo was not killed by Doc Holliday; Cosmatos claimed Stephen Lang was drunk for most of the filming; the Latin exchange translated

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:43:58Read transcript
  • All the mustaches in the movie were real; Val Kilmer practiced his quick-draw speed for a long time and gave the character a Southern aristocrat accent.
  • 'I'll be damned' really were the final words of Doc Holliday, and historians debate to this day why he said it.
  • One theory offered: a gunman who always expected to die with his boots on looked at his feet, saw he had no boots on, and said it because he was dying without them, not just of tuberculosis; we will never know.
  • In real life Johnny Ringo did not die at the hands of Doc Holliday; it was a suicide, which prompts a joke that he started dating Lady Gaga and her career took off, finally cracking a smile from Craig.
  • Cosmatos did claim Stephen Lang was drunk for most of the filming; the Latin exchange is translated line by line, Doc's 'in wine there is truth', Ringo's 'do what you do', Doc's 'let Apelia the Jew believe, not I' (as transcribed), Ringo's 'youth is the teacher of fools' and Doc's 'rest in peace', judged more fun in Latin and a terrible conversation, to be quoted at that night's Ringer holiday party.
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59:51

Picking Nits

Maddie's drug-overdose death is thrown in by the narrator with no payoff; no great poker scene despite the Oriental; ...

Maddie's drug-overdose death is thrown in by the narrator with no payoff; no great poker scene despite the Oriental; faro is never explained; odd edits make the day unclear; the unexplained killing spree after Doc kills Johnny Ringo; the unnecessary Robert Mitchum narration; the Billy Zane and Dana Delaney characters are hard to understand

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:51Read transcript
  • Maddie dying of a drug overdose is thrown in for no reason: she could have had a happy ending, or died in the middle so the heavily invested addiction plot paid off, rather than the narrator announcing it; one reading is that it exists to forgive Wyatt for running off with Dana Delaney, making him a widower anyway, and the real problem is that her character does not need to be in the movie.
  • Josephine, whom Wyatt ended up with, reportedly spent the rest of their life together trying to bury that part of his past, inserting herself into the Wyatt Earp story where Maddie had been.
  • It is upsetting that there is no awesome poker scene despite the Oriental, beyond the early game where a man gets stabbed; a heated Wyatt Earp, Powers Booth and Kilmer poker game would have been a better choice than the twelve-minute theater scene, and 1880s poker is what one host wants to watch.
  • Faro (transcribed 'Farrow'), the game the Earps actually came to make money on, a weird French game casinos no longer offer, is never explained in a film that over-explains everything; Kilmer's line that he does not play games of chance is noted, though he plays plenty of poker, which may be a natural game.
  • Weird edits make it night twice and unclear whether it is the same day, attributed to Cosmatos just trying to get the thing out; one host's only nitpick is how the others assessed Dana Wheeler Nicholson's performance.
  • The biggest problem: after Doc kills Johnny Ringo, an amazing scene, there is a lot of killing nobody understands, presumably hunting down Ike, the last third turning into a lynch mob like the end of Cobra where the heroes kill everybody; it all leads to Doc succumbing to TB, Wyatt's final sit-down with him and the happily-ever-after with Josephine, but that third-act interlude is strange.
  • Earlier asides: the Billy Zane and Dana Delaney characters are not totally understood, and Robert Mitchum's narrator is called completely unnecessary, the cliche of how a Western gets told.
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1:05:13

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Does Kevin Costner make this movie better or worse? Would a Kurt Russell reconstruction of Tombstone as the Western G...

Does Kevin Costner make this movie better or worse? Would a Kurt Russell reconstruction of Tombstone as the Western Godfather be worth watching? Why does this always happen to Westerns?

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:13Read transcript
  • Does Kevin Costner make this movie better or worse? In a sense he did make the movie; it cannot be made without Russell, since Costner at that point was in his own head about being an auteur and was too famous, while Russell is the right level of famous; Wyatt Earp is so long because it details his romantic relationships from his teens through law enforcement to Tombstone.
  • Russell has said he was given all the footage to reconstruct the movie, that the real film is a Western Godfather quite different from what was released, and that he has not done it because he has a life, though while moving he found the hospital scene between Wyatt and Doc that he wrote; whether anyone would want to watch a reconstructed Tombstone is the question.
  • Interest in director's cuts and reconstructions, like the chronological Godfather and the Apocalypse Now cut, has faded with the home-entertainment market, so it would probably not make money and might be a Netflix eight-episode miniseries instead, though there may not be enough footage; The Other Side of the Wind, reassembled from film found in Slovenia and Paris, is an amazing document but not an amazing movie, and a reconstruction risks feeling like what they wanted without being it; the hosts like Tombstone's messy flaws.
  • Why does this always happen to Westerns? They are expensive and tough to manage, you easily fall behind with horses, weather and the elements, and nobody makes a fast Western; it always has to be sprawling.
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