Gunman’s Rhapsody, Robert Parker

Gunman’s Rhapsody,  Robert Parker

The following note from audible.com is a good summary of the book which I found really enjoyable.  I just wish Parker had written more western’s than mysteries.  I do not like his mysteries, but love the characters of each book.  In this book he does not have his pair of gunmen – lawmen who filled – Appaloosa and others in a series that has resulted in at least one movie. 

What this book does is create an aura around Wyatt and his brothers, a sense of the west and Tombstone that conforms to the hardnosed detective style.  Here is the true to life mix of hero/villains who cross too many lines to be easily described as good guy and bad guy.

“Robert B. Parker gives his fans the book he always longed to write - a brilliant and evocative novel set against the hard scrabble frontier life of the West, featuring Wyatt Earp. It is the winter of 1879, and Dodge city has lost its snap. Thirty-one-year-old Wyatt Earp, assistant city marshal, loads his wife and all they own into a wagon, and goes with two of his brothers and their women to Tombstone, Arizona, land of the silver mines. There Earp becomes deputy sheriff, meeting up with the likes of Doc Holliday, Clay Allison and Bat Masterson as well as finding the love of his life, showgirl Josie Marcus. While navigating the constantly shifting alliances of a largely lawless territory, Earp finds himself embroiled in a simmering feud with Johnny Behan, which ultimately erupts in deadly gunfire on a dusty street corner.”

Despite the fact that the Gunfight at OK corral has been a part of the American Mythos and portrayed is so many versions on screen and TV, the book is still fresh and the gunfight, as it was, just enjoys a small part of the book  - it was, in truth, a very short episode in real life.  But it is the Earp’s – brothers who have a very strong family bond, their women who see a different version of the men, and their roles as gamblers, gunmen, and lawmen surrounded by equally questionable villains and lawmen that make this such fun reading. 

I found myself wondering how many versions we have had of Earp and the gunfight.  As a child I loved Hugh O’Brien as Wyatt Earp on television and can still hear the opening line – “Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp, brave, courageous and bold…”  And the second line ends with “long may his story be told” which certainly seems to be the case.  One aspect of the story is the long life of the players – Wyatt’s wife lived until the year before I died and most of the Earp’s went well in to the 1900’s.  So the legend lived and rose beyond the dime novels to tell his own story. 

How accurate and how good he was is open to debate for scholars who continue to publish new books about him and all the events.  Maybe it was his long life that raised Wyatt Earp above Wild Bill Hickok who became a showman with Buffalo Bill and other “lawmen” of the west.

I went to the web to find out how many versions of movies we have had from the gunfight that became a Hollywood cash cow:  James Garner, Hour of the Gun (1967) Garner played Earp again (as an amateur detective) in the 1988 TV movie Sunset.

Guy Madison, Gunmen of the Rio Grande (1965)
What's the spaghetti Western take on Earp? Playing fast and loose with the facts. Madison played Wild Bill Hickok in a TV series and made this film when Eastwood, Fond, and others found western gold in Italy.

James Stewart, Cheyenne Autumn (1964) Played for laughs, you can add this to Stewart’s role as Wylie Burp in An American Tale: Fievel Goes West.

Burt Lancaster, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957).  This was the gold standard and he was backed up by Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday.

Joel McCrea, Wichita (1955)  Wyatt was the Marshall of Wichita before going to Tombstone – Dodge and Abilene too.  McCrea gives a good performance as the young Earp.

Henry Fonda, My Darling Clementine (1946) As befits Fonda, but not Earp – this was a very easy going, laid back version – not the one in Gunman’s Rhapsody.




Randolph Scott, Frontier Marshall (1939) The first film Wyatt played by one of the greats of the early B Westerns.  Scott faces down the Clanton’s by himself in this version.

Tombstone - Kurt Russell

Wyatt Earp - Kevin Costner