Tombstone (1993)

RafalFett · Jul 31, 2023

Tombstone's Holy Trinity of Paper Props:

This craze started after my post in this thread ==> tombstone Bird Cage Theater Prop Program. At that time I did a bit of research and found some of the sewing machines from the back cover and the dancing couple on the front cover of the theater program. Then I heard about John Farkis' book, The Making of Tombstone and found through Google Books the photos with the No Guns Ordinance and the Bird Cage Theatre Program. To my surprise, the book also say the following regarding the theater program:

Even though it is only seen on the screen for a second, a great deal of effort went into creating an eight-page prop program for the evening’s show.
Titled Pinafore on Wheels Presents the Pauline Markham Pinnafore Troupe, the presentation consisted of three performances: “Prof. Gillman and his
Ballet of Gravity,” “Selections from the Bard by Mr. Romulus Fabian Tragedian in Excelsis” and “Faust—Or the Devil’s Bargain.” The meticulously
detailed program featured advertisements for such periodcorrect products as Robert Bacon cigars, Dr. Price’s Cream baking powder and Magic Starch,
as well as a full-page ad for an “Improved High Arm Sewing Machine.” Apparently, a three-act, six-scene play was also planned for the evening
as a list of the stage show’s “actors” and the characters they played was included in the program, which even contained a plan of theater
exits in the event of a fire. In all, it was quite a brochure for something that no one would ever see.

This led me to the craze for making the ultimate reproduction of the theater program (except the originals). But we will talk about this in the next post.

The No Guns Ordinance was an easy/medium job, especially because I had the full photo of the poster, but also in the movie we have a close-up shot of 1/3rd of the poster. I found all the correct fonts and all the design elements (from design books found on archive.org; as vectors or parts of a font) and here's what I got in the end:

This should print at 300 x 469 mm.

The next prop was the My Friend Doc Holliday book cover. Gladly, there is a great close-up shot of the front cover, but a blurry shot of the back:

Except the fonts and some of the central design elements, I had to vectorize or redraw the rest of the cover. The back is a reinterpretation in lack of info and I took a quote from Virgil Earp to complete the book cover:

This should be printed at 285 x 210 mm when open.

In the next post I will cover the Bird Cage Theatre program.

RafalFett · Jul 31, 2023

The Bird Cage Theatre program was like an obsession for the last 3-4 months and to achieve it I had to dig deep in the archives of time.

The first thing I tackled was the front cover. I found all the correct fonts, several dancing couple images (the best one was vectorized for a sharper look) and I even found the top ribbon as part of a vectorized art bundle; the rectangular frame was made by hand. Sadly I did not have luck with the oval frame and its components (and after several failed attempts at vectorizing the image), in the end I scaled it to fit and A4 paper, printed it and using a tracing paper I draw the shapes first with a pencil, then traced on top with a black ballpoint pen:

Here is the front cover in all its beauty:

This should print at 149 x 236 mm. Sadly only the covers I will share in good resolution (you will understand at the end of this post why).

Then using screencaps from the movie and the info from the John Farkis book (quoted in the 1st post) I started looking for Dr. Price's Cream Baking Powder, Magic Starch and Robert Bacon cigars ads. During the research I found that the Robert Bacon cigars were available much later, more exactly in the 1910s, so I opted to add another brand that was correct to that period:

The Magic Starch ad was a tough one, but I found it 1st on archive.org (sadly this was digitized and it lost some details) and later a better variant:

For the Dr. Price's Cream Baking Powder you can find several ads just by doing a simple search, but the correct one was hard to find. Here are some variants:

And a close one:

And here is the correct ad (screenshot for comparison):

All these ads were vectorized and all the fonts added or modified to match the originals. Here's the 1st page in low resolution and some variants I made (the last one with the Robert Bacon cigars ad):

The next thing was to do the back cover with the sewing machines. Although I find some great images of sewing machines (the 1st one being correct for the top machine)...

... I had to add some text to fill in the blanks. After weeks and months of searching on and off, I managed to find not only the correct sewing machines, but the whole pages (yes, you read it correctly) of the ads on archive.org (you'll have to borrow the book to be able to see the pages) ==> Montgomery Ward & Co. catalogue and buyers' guide 1895. : Montgomery Ward. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive but also on Google Books with the correct search terms (Montgomery Ward Catalogue of 1895):

Everything (except the 3 sewing machine) was replaced with correct fonts or were vectorized to match the original.

For the last page I added the title and blueprints of the Bird Cage Theatre from drawings made in 1938 and a text taken from another theater program regarding the fire notice:

master-pnp-habshaer-az-az0000-az0021-sheet-00000a_2.png

master-pnp-habshaer-az-az0000-az0021-sheet-00002a_2.png

1916_playbill_for_Maxine_Elliott_s_Theatre_NYC_2_800x.png

And here's page #7:

There's a pretty good look at half of page #2:

It says the same info from the front cover: Pinafore on Wheels presents and below the text separator Pauline Markham Pinafore Troupe.

And here is a good, blurry look at the central pages (#3 and 4) with the 3 act play:

In lack of any info, I had to do something to fill these pages (half of page #2, pages #3, 4 & 5), so it was logical to expand the 3 shows from the program/movie: some fictional info of professor Gillman (part of the text was actually taken from a period correct newspaper), and excerpts from Shakespeare's Henry V and Goethe's Faust. And because I loved those wooden cards drawn with chalk on the easel, I had to somehow add them to the program:

There was no way I can vectorize them, so I did the same technique I used for the oval frame: printed them on A4 paper and draw them with black ballpoint pen on tracing paper; then I scanned the papers and vectorized all 3 designs:

And here are the pages:

So, this was my journey (in short) on achieving the best reproduction of the theater program.

Here's my prop (with a couple of variants):

Have fun!

The next post will cover some of the ads and posters seen throughout the movie.

RafalFett · Jul 31, 2023

In this post I will cover some of the ads, posters and a newspaper seen in the movie (some of these I already posted in this thread ==> Tombstone - Gunfight at OK Corral - Wyatt Earp - Earp Family):