Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
1881 Tombstone, Arizona, USA: Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil, and John H ('Doc') Holliday had the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The 30-second shootout left three cowboys dead and Virgil Earp and Morgan Earp badly wounded.
The shootout actually took place in a vacant lot near the intersection of Third Street and Fremont Street behind the OK Corral next to CS Fly's Boarding House and Photo Studio. The shooting started when Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury cocked their pistols.
The Earps and Doc Holliday were arrested for murder by Sheriff Behan. At the trial following the gunfight, it was determined that the Earps acted within the law.
John Sturges made a Hollywood film, Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), which served to further popularize this ugly part of American history, in a decade when violent western movies and TV shows were extremely popular worldwide.
See also Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight, the Going Snake Massacre and the Gunfight at Hide Park ...
Categories: usa, history, wild-west, crime
Pip Wilson posted item above at 12:16 PM | Permalink
2 Comments:
"were extremely popular worldwide"
True. I grew up on Westerns and WWII films. But there was far less graphic violence. You'd hear a bang and someone would fall off a horse, or a German soldier would collapse, but I hardly remember any blood, let alone the extreme stuff that one sometimes sees nowadays - even in fairly straightforward suspense films, not intended to be "horror".
On the other hand: some good films have been made which portray the real horrors of war, something we never saw as kids, when it was all about 'heroes' jumping out of planes to liaise with the French resistance - which made me decide at the age of about 8 that I wanted to be a spy when I grew up. :)
True, movies in those days were too bloodless. But modern movies are often horrible and I avoid many of them so as not to defile my soul. Last week someone recommended I watch 'Interview with the Vampire'. It was by far the most disgusting thing I've seen on screen in my 55 years. I waited 20 minutes to see if it had any redeeming qualities, which it didn't, so I switched it off. Yanks especially are responsible for graphic sadism and cruelty in 'entertainment', a reflection of a very sick culture. No wonder they murder each other at such a high rate compared to most countries - surely Hollywood has inured people to cruelty and violence (not to mention really uncivil conversation, a feature of modern American movies). But it's catching on in other coutries. I feel sorry for people who can watch such evil and munch popcorn. It's like part of their souls have been defiled and robbed by the greedy studios.
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