The film My Darling Clementine (1946), based on Stuart Lake's novel Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshall, was a re-make of the 1939 film Frontier Marshall. Its director, John Ford, had built a reputation on directing Westerns, and My Darling Clementine is considered by many to be his best and most poetic Western. Ford used the story of the O.K. Corral to create the image of a triumphant postwar America. The film centers on Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) and their shoot-out with the Clantons at the O.K. Corral. Tombstone, the town over which Earp presides as sheriff, rids itself of evil and thus transforms itself from a wilderness into a garden. Holliday struggles to overcome his sullied past, while Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs) brings a future of innocence to Tombstone. The film ends with a triumphant ushering in of the new church with a social dance at which Earp accompanies Clementine.

Further Reading:

Bogdanovich, Peter. John Ford. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978.

Davis, Ronald L. John Ford: Hollywood's Old Master. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.