Wyatt Earp, one of the Old West’s most notorious gunman, would be 168 years old this month. Actually he lived to be 80 dying in 1929. It is said that the victor usually gets to write the history but in Earp’s case it might simply be that Hollywood  got the chance. But prior to Hollywood’s make over, Earp suffered a lot of what we would call today “misinformation” or simply bad publicity.

“I am tired of seeing so many articles published concerning me which are untrue,” wrote Earp. In order to correct the “record” and set the untruths right about his life Earp and John H. Ford went to work on Earp’s autobiography. Their attempts to peddle his autobiography were futile.

http://www.historynet.com/john-flood-and-wyatt-earp.htm

Cowboys for the most part had reputations as being a rambunctious crowd prone to drinking, gambling and shooting up saloons. This reputation, however, was slowly beginning to change with end of the 19^th Century and the beginning of  the 20^th Century. The cowboy was changing from a rowdy individual to the much admired rugged individual portrayed in the paintings of Fredrick Remington and novels like Owen Wister’s The Virginian.

It was in this shifting image that Earp tried to peddle his autobiography off on to silent film star William S. Hart. Hart was a popular Western movie star of the 1910s “and the most revered Western movie actor of the silent era.”

http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/93608/William-S-Hart/biography

According to IMBd Hart was “A storybook hero, the original screen cowboy, ever forthright and honest, even when (as was often the case) he played a villain.” However, Hart did not buy into the Earp autobiography.

Although things did begin to change. Not too long after Earp died in Los Angles in 1929 Stuart Lake published Earp’s biography: Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. This 1931 publication turned the saloon owner, gun-fighting gambler into Hollywood folk hero.

But soon Hollywood buys into Earp as the stand up lawman needed to tame the West  In 1939 Randolph Scott played Earp in Frontier Marshall. That same year Errol Flynn portrays Earp in Dodge City. Other leading greats like Jimmy Stuart, Henry Fonda and Burt Lancaster also  portrayed Earp. Even Bret Maverick, James Garner, played Earp in The Hour of the Gun.

And of course there are the two 1990 revisions of Earp and his brothers in Kevin Costner’s epic film Wyatt Earp, which followed a year after Kurt Russell in the 1993 release: Tombstone.

http://www.criminaleement.com/blogs/2014/05/all-my-earps-the-many-filmed-faces-of-wyatt-earp-edward-a-grainger-film-westerns

But Earp’s story was not just for the big screen.  In September of 1955 Earp made it to TV when ABC aired The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp staring Hugh O’Brian. The show ran until 1961 before going off after 229 episodes. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp premiered four days before Gunsmoke, which ran for 20 seasons going off the air after 635 shows in 1975.

There have been a plethora of Westerns on TV from Wagon Train to Little House on the Prairie  as well as Epic movies like Dances with Wolves on the big screen. These shows and movies have given the world a shifting image of American history.

The Old West has been open to many  interpretations and misinformation. The Western Genre in literature and movies has found a place in American culture regardless of the man and the legend.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/shootout-at-the-ok-corral

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNHLkcRcazQ

 

In the 1960s it was Hertz Rental car that wanted to put you in the driver’s seat. In the 2020s Google will be taking you  out of the driver’s seat.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says they agree with Google that a self driving vehicle “will not have a driver in the traditional sense.”  In other words we can all move to the back seat.

A car without a steering wheel or brake pedal really frees the human driver to do everything a driver has always wanted to do but was afraid to while driveing: like put on make up or shave in the visor mirror on the way to work. Or send that all important message to a coworker to save you a doughnut from the break room because you are running late. Soon we will be able to text and not worry if we actually see the brake lights up ahead.  There will be no more slamming on the brakes and spilling  coffee all down your lap.

According to the NHTSA “If no human occupant of the vehicle can actually drive the vehicle, it is more reasonable to identify the driver as whatever (as opposed to whoever) is doing the driving.” This is kind of like if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it does it make a sound.  If no “person” is driving does this mean we no longer need a good neighbor or some lizard to sell us auto insurance or does the car get insurance?

A driverless car kills the mystique of the big block Hemi, the muscle car, the tight steering sports car racing up the winding road where man and machine become one.  And what about Hollywood and those fantastic chase scenes. Who can forget the classic car chase in the movie “Bullit.” Steve McQueen horsing a 1968 Ford Mustang GT through the streets of San Francisco chasing a supped up Dodge Charger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31JgMAHVeg0

Driverless cars will end road rage between people  but will it introduce us to a new form of rage. There is a lot to be said in turning the driving over to Google. But are we handing over more than the keys to the family  car.   As in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey when Dave tries to get the ship’s computer Hal to open the pod bay  doors.  In this case it would be “Google open the garage door.”

“Sorry Dave I am afraid I a can’t do that.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W5Am-a_xWw