My Darling Clementine

Like many Hollywood directors, Ford's claims for his films are very modest. For him the key thing about My Darling Clementine is its authenticity: 'I knew Wyatt Earp...and he told me about the fight at the OK Corral. So we did it exactly the way it had been.' For viewers, however, the film's greatness (and enjoyability) rests not in the accuracy of the final shootout, but in the orchestrated series of incidents - the drunken Shakespearean actor, Earp's visit to the barber, the dance in the unfinished church - which give meaning to the shootout. Peter Wollen's comment on the significance of Earp's visit to the barber's and its outcome makes clear just how complex the ideas contained in these incidents are: 'This moment marks the turning point of Earp's transition from wandering cowboy, nomadic savage, bent on revenge, unmarried, to married man, settled, civilised, the sheriff who administers the law.'