Overview: Fact-based bio of early film director-producer, Bill Tilghman (Sam Elliott). Tighman was a real life cowboy, who rode with the Earps & faced down countless bad guys. When he turned to films, he was determined to make authentic Westerns, rather than the fake carrying on of Tom Mix & other Western movie stars of the day. The only problem was that no one wanted to see his non-stars in any story. Arliss Howard co-stars as a cocaine-addled law enforcement nemesis of Tighman, who attempts to stop him at every turn.

DVD Verdict: This movie depicts the final days of Bill Tilghman. Tilghman enforced the law from the 1880's, as Marshal of Dodge City through the Indian Territory days in Oklahoma to statehood and Roaring '20s gangsters. At 70, he was about the only man left alive who had tamed a wild cowtown. The Governor called on him to bring law and order to Cromwell, the oiltown known as "the meanest town in Oklahoma." He did it, though did not live to see his work totally completed. Sam Elliott does a wonderful job of portraying this lawman who was better known in his day than the Wyatt Earps and such we are familiar with today. While a few cinematic prerogatives were taken, William Kent Harrison stayed pretty close to history and clearly did a lot of research. He beautifully depicts the wonderment of an old West lawman coping with gangsters in T-model Fords and ignoring the ethics that characterized even such desperadoes as Bill Doolin in the 1890's. Particularly interesting were the vignettes of Tilghman's 1915 movie, "The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws," which he and many of the people who were really there starred in. In the early 1900's, famed lawman Bat Masterson was asked about the old lawmen of the West. Without hesitation, he said "Tilghman was the greatest of us all." Sam Elliot is without a doubt the best modern western actor today. As with all his movies, he gives a stunning performance. Some may say that is lacks a good plot, but the movie is a true story. Still, I was glad the movie was made - many people never read history unless they've seen the movie first! This is a Full Screen Presentation (1.33:1) and comes with the Special Features of a New Featurette 'Law Makers of the West' with writer/director John Kent Harrison, and Subtitles in French and Spanish (Movie Only).