Guns of Tombstone

[Wyatt Burp]

Still from the film The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
View attachment 681467
It's in the movie, so it has to be true, right?
Right?

This a great movie and I think historically correct, except the Jesse James committing suicide by assassination part. I assume Ford used a NM3 S&W but who knows. The ridiculous Tyrone Power movie was typical 1930s whitewashing. The Robert Wagner one that Mauser9 mentioned was much better portraying him cruel and murderous at times. And “The Long Riders”? I like it as much as the Brad Pitt film. With an excellent Belle Starr portrayal, though better looking than the real one.

 

[StrawHat]

This a great movie and I think historically correct, except the Jesse James committing suicide by assassination part. I assume Ford used a NM3 S&W but who knows. The ridiculous Tyrone Power movie was typical 1930s whitewashing. The Robert Wagner one that Mauser9 mentioned was much better portraying him cruel and murderous at times. And “The Long Riders”? I like it as much as the Brad Pitt film. With an excellent Belle Starr portrayal, though better looking than the real one.

Wait, Brad Pitt played Belle Starr? He probably was better looking than Belle.

Kevin

 

[gunbarrel]

Good flick, the 2007 Brad Pitt movie "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"

Here is more on it:

"Jesse" (Brad Pitt) gives Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) a nickel-finish , Smith & Wesson New Model No.3 which Bob later uses to shoot him in the back.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Internet Movie Firearms Database - Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games

BTW, supposedly, Jesse James' last revolver was a S&W Schofield...

Wheelgun Wednesday: S&W Schofield Revolver Attributed To Jesse James -The Firearm Blog

 

[Wyatt Burp]

Wait, Brad Pitt played Belle Starr? He probably was better looking than Belle.

Kevin

That’s a creepy thought, but when you look at the real Belle Starr, you got a point. The babe playing Belle Starr in The Long Riders was excellent, realistic, and they purposely didn’t make her all glamorous.
EDIT: Oops.Kind of off topic as this was about Tombstone.

 

[Jim Watson]

Just to show how close we are to the frontier days, Elmer Keith remembered his Dad competing in harness racing with Frank James.

 

[ISCS Yoda]

"The Ballad of Jesse James" is in several movies and the Long Riders was not even close to the first.

Here's some history:

Jesse James (folk song - Wikipedia)

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0;, etc.

I never heard that Easterners were less inclined to dislike back shooting than Westerners but I'm not into "Old East" history as much as I am into "Old West" history.

Robert "Bob" Ford was killed by a shotgun blast fired by Edward Capehart O'Kelley. Nobody really knows why O'Kelley did it but the surmise is that he had some kind of connection to Jesse James or had some kind of connection to the James family.

=======================

Having said all of that, the more important question is how many of the guns in "Tombstone" were real and how many non-firing replicas. The American Rifleman recently ran a long piece about "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and discussed the guns in great detail because they were Walker Colts. Apparently, "Josey" used rubber replicas for spinning or the "road-agent's spin".

 

[BMur]

Stupidity rules!

I honestly don’t see the need to have viable firearms on any movie set. That is PURE STUPIDITY. I wonder if that poor lady would still be alive if they followed that practice on the recent movie set killing involving Alec Baldwin?

Movies are “NOT REAL”, THEY ARE FICTION!

CLINT EASTWOOD USING RUBBER GUNS TO PRACTICE THE ROAD AGENT TRICK IS SAFETY SMART IN MY BOOK!

MURPH

 

[Xfuzz]

Here is recently "invented" revolver based on
the Tombstone movie.
Modern day copy of Holliday's Colt Thunder or lighting.

 

[Model19man]

I think there is no way to fully document the provenance of any gun that most outlaws owned, including Bob Ford.

Actually it is pretty easy as the local newspaper printed the Colt SAA's serial number as court evidence. Why you cannot find it is a mystery, and why anyone would pay big for a fictitious S&W is also beyond me.

 

[BMur]

The Lyin Bragger

Bob Ford was most definitely a liar and an enormous bragger. It’s painful to actually do the research on him because literally everything that came out of his mouth was a YARN.

The signed affidavit was actually 1 month “after the killing” of Jesse James. He also claimed the Smith & Wesson NM3 that is inscribed on the side plate was the murder weapon.

The truth is only Bob Ford and Charley Ford know what happened in that room. From all of what I’ve read about the Ford brothers their story is a total lie. Pre-fabricated before they even entered that room. In my researched opinion they murdered him as a team with a pre-planned scam. When you think about it the story they claim as what happened is actually comical. Made up by kindergarteners.

After the governor pardoned Bob and Charlie Ford.(They were actually sentenced to be hanged)
Bob Ford and Dick Liddil left for Las Vegas New Mexico to open a bar. It was a failure and the locals got so sick of hearing Bob Fords yarns and claims of prowess with a gun that they set him up in a shooting contest with a local shootist that rode with Billy the kid!

Bob Ford did very poorly in the contest and whined like a baby that it was not done fairly. So the shootist said:”Let’s do it for real”…
Bob Ford backed down and left town totally humiliated.

True story.

Murph

 

[Kinman]

The myth of shoot outs and meeting out in the center of the street at midday has pretty well been debunked as the way in which people died back in the "bad old days". Most were dry gulched outside of town or as travelers going through bad parts of the country. Bad folks would kill people just to get their pocket change, honest work being what it was. The one benefit of hangman type jurys was that even though the creep may not have been guilty of the crime convicted he was probably guilty of dozens more that he never answered for. To quote one of my favorites "If you hang with outlaws, you will in the end as well."
The genetic pool had many bad genes cleaned out during that period of time.