I'm wondering if we could shift this discussion to ask why the Earp story has been re-told so many times. What is it about these characters, the issues, the violence that make it something filmmakers return to. What, at least, made it possible for two versions of the story to make it to the screen within six months of one another? Or, perhaps in a larger sense, why the upsurge of Westerns (or at least films that promote themselves as Westerns) in the last few years? What relationships can be made, legitimately, between the concerns of violent crime, gangs and gun control and these movies which seem to thrive on such elements? (Tombstone, I feel, is especially aware of these current societal issues - remember when Wyatt takes all the guns away from the people in town? The Brady Bill was passed almost to the day Tombstone came out.) John Nichols Univ. of Pittsburgh