Plot Devices
Although the characters and setting of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral are presented, a great deal of the plot of the film significantly deviates from the actual history. Clementine Carter is not a historical person, and in this script appears to be an amalgam of Big Nose Kate and Josephine Earp. The actual Earps were many things, but never cowboys or drovers or cattle owners. Important plot devices in the film, such as the death of James Earp (who actually died in 1926), the death of Old Man Clanton (who actually died in a cattle drive ambush in New Mexico two months before the O.K. Corral confrontation, and probably never met the Earps or Holliday), and personal details about Doc Holliday (who was a dentist, not a surgeon, and actually died 6 years later of tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs, Colorado), are all very liberally and fictionally portrayed.
Read more about this topic: My Darling Clementine
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