The Gunfight at the OK Corral

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The Gunfight at the OK Corral

Hollywood has an unquestionable tendency to dramatize events to make them more appealing to the audience. This happens to be the case in The Gunfight at the OK Corral. Although Hollywood documented the events leading up to, and the actual gunfight relatively accurate, they failed to include some small incidents and confrontations that may have very well contributed to the outcome in Tombstone.

The film begins in Fort Griffin, Texas with "Doc" Holliday in trouble after he killed a man in a saloon. Although it was clearly self-defense, a lynch mob gathered to hang Doc. This is when Wyatt Earp sets up a distraction and arranges for Doc Holliday's escape. Doc felt he was in great dept to his savior and wound up in Dodge City, Kansas, where Wyatt is marshalling. After some talk between the two, Earp decides to let the notorious killer stay in his town as lonf as he promised no killing. This segment marked the beginning of their friendship when, according to Dee Brown Doc saved Wyatt's life from a bunch of rustlers in the Long Branch Saloon. Kate, Doc's on and off girlfriend, on the other hand suggested that the friendship started on their trip west since Earp accepted Doc's tuberculosis, a disease many did not understand and were frightened of.

In the movie Wyatt Earp was getting ready to move to California to marry. Then he got word that his brother Virgil was in danger and needed his help with a rowdy bunch of cowboys. Dee Brown said, "Wyatt decided Dodge was too tame for him and at the end of the season he, Doc, and Big-Nose Kate left for Tombstone." His arrival in Arizona with Doc and Kate was already a problem since highly acclaimed Wyatt Earp was riding in with the cold-blooded killer, Doc Holliday. The film portrayed Wyatt's brothers as being very wary of Doc's presence, but they already knew what he had done for Wyatt so they had accepted him as friend, but that did not go for the rest of the town.

The events played in the movie were obviously crucial to the gunfight, but there were other circumstances that contributed. Perhaps the biggest problem that went unmentioned was the Benson Stage Robbery where Bud Philpot was murdered.

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