The casting of Will Geer as Wyatt Earp was appalling ! Will was a fine actor in warm human parts such as Grandpa Walton but he was just not believable as an ice cold gunfighter turned lawman. Shame on the casting director- and the director for allowing this choice to stand !
shareI agree.
He was also about 20 years too old!
I like pie.
I liked the character he portrayed as it was a good contrast to the other types in this film. I view this as a work of fiction and the only thing I drew from the sherriff being named Wyatt Earp was that I knew he had been a legend and therefore was given great respect. My lack of historical knowledge of Wyatt Earp had no bearing on my viewing other than not to hinder it, as seems to be the case for those who thought they were watching a documentary.
...and we have a new game today, I think, don't we, Mac?
I don't consider Will Greer as Wyatt Earp one of the better inspirations in an otherwise stellar cast. It seems to be done for the purpose of light relief. As others have noted, it may be to show a contrast between him and the very intense character played by Jimmy Stewart. Interestingly, Stewart himself would provide a very over the top performance of Earp some years later in "Cheyenne Autumn." It doesn't really fit in, but the Dodge City sequence is probably the highlight of an otherwise very stodgy movie. My favorite Earp representation, however, is not in any of the very numerous film versions. It comes in a Star Trek episode entitled "Specter of the Gun" showing the Earps as I think of them; cold, hard, deadly and pretty much devoid of humor.
share"as seems to be the case for those who thought they were watching a documentary."
Ugh. Whenever a historical discrepancy is pointed out, people always use this line. I mean, screw people who know stuff, right? We all still love the film, and I doubt anyone expected 100% historical authenticity, but I guess we can't express our views without the assumption that we're stuffy blow-hards.
I like pie.
Here are some more historical discrepancies. Earp was only 25 years old in 1873 and wasn't the marshal of Dodge City until 1875 at the earliest and he was listed as an assistant marshal then, but who really cared in 1950. Earp retired from law enforcement before he was 40, so his portrayal as an older father figure type is entirely inaccurate.
This is still a great movie even with the historical shortcomings.
This film is set at the Centennial in 1876, when Wyatt Earp was 28 years old. BTW Bat Masterson was only 22 and he also is played by an actor nearly fifty.
shareI thought Geer was great. If the movie were going for strict accuracy as history, then I would agree with you (I'm a history major in college myself). But Wyatt Earp has become almost as big a legend in American history as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, or Johnny Appleseed. They were all real men, but so many stories and myths have grown up around them that their true characters and personalities are often obscured. Think of Henry Fonda as Earp in My Darling Clementine: This film was also highly inaccurate, and while I have not studied the Earps much I can say that his motivations in this film were almost entirely different than in real life. But MDC is still one of the greatest American films ever made. Will Geer is not Henry Fonda, and he comes off as very friendly and fatherly--probably different from the real Earp. But I think the movie was explicitly trying to do a different take on a legend. Show him in a different light, with some different quirks. His accomplishments are still there, we still know how great a gunfighter he is, but his demeanor throws us off and gives us a delightful character that works well in the context of the story. It's sort of like doing a different take on King Arthur or Robin Hood--the character has been done so many times before that the filmmakers have to do things differently to hold the audience's interest and make them look at things in a fresh way.
shareI thought he was Virgil before he introduced himself. Then, maybe Wyatt Earp was a nice guy until he got pissed off. I wouldn't be surprised.
"I'm a gentleman's gentleman, and you're no bloody gentleman !"
Anybody here who thinks the casting of Geer as Wyatt Earp was fine doesn't care about history and is stupid. Geer plays Earp as a sloppy, fat, stupid, old man. The complete opposite of Earp in reality. Wyatt Earp was a tough son of a bitch, young, and slick back in the days of Dodge City. He was a man's man and the greatest law enforcer ever. He was the Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan of the wild, wild west. The casting of Geer as Earp is appalling and a slap in the face to historians. Like myself.
share"Greatest law enforcer ever"?
What???
Earp ran the brothel, had a couple assassinations to his name and was often on the wrong side of the law.
I'll bet Roy Bean is your favorite law enforcer judge.
I know what you mean. It's laughable in a sense.
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