Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal - Film Adaptations

Film Adaptations

Lake's book was the source for the first film about Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal, produced by Sol M. Wurtzel in 1934. Before the first movie was released, Wyatt Earp's widow Josephine Earp sued 20th Century Fox for $50,000 in an attempt to keep them from making the film. She said it was an "unauthorized portrayal" of Wyatt Earp. She succeeded in getting Wyatt's name completely excised from the movie. His character was renamed "Michael Wyatt," and the movie was released as Frontier Marshal.

A second version of the film using the same title Frontier Marshal starring Randolph Scott and directed by Wurtzel was produced in 1939. Josephine threatened once again to sue, but this settled for $5,000.

Lake retold this same story in a 1946 book that director John Ford developed into the movie My Darling Clementine which further boosted Wyatt's reputation. It included whole scenes reshot from the 1939 film. After the movie Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was released in 1957, the shootout came to be known by that name.

Since then, Wyatt Earp and the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books. The book later inspired a number of stories, movies and television programs about outlaws and lawmen in Dodge City and Tombstone, including the 1955 television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.