Review // My Darling Clementine (1946)

“John Ford… takes on the legend of the O.K. Corral shoot-out in this multilayered, exceptionally well-constructed western, one of the director's very best films. Henry Fonda… cuts an iconic figure as Wyatt Earp, the sturdy lawman who sets about the task of shaping up the disorderly Arizona town of Tombstone, and Victor Mature… gives the performance of his career as the boozy, tubercular gambler and gunman Doc Holliday. Though initially at cross-purposes, the pair ultimately team up to confront the violent Clanton gang. Affecting and stunningly photographed, My Darling Clementine is a story of the triumph of civilization over the Wild West from American cinema's consummate mythmaker.” (from Amazon) And “While My Darling Clementine never loses its dynamism as a hard-hitting western, it is also a tender love story.” (from the dvd case)

The West is so unique in that -- figuring from, say, after the Civil War to 1900 (I know there’re elements both before and after that) -- the wild west we tend to think of was such a short period of time, and so unique in that it was being mythologized as it happened. This whole film just made me think of all that again as it was filmed just seventeen years after Wyatt Earp’s death and Earp himself was a technical advisor to John Ford in the silent film days (apparently also drawing a sketch for him of the layout and sequence of events for the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral). The overlap is so fascinating.

(Note: that said, great liberties were taken with this film. Its historical inaccuracies are well documented elsewhere, but if, like me, you’re a fan of other renditions of, as a major for instance, the friendship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, I just have to mention that this is a trifle jarring. Having experienced a rollercoaster of opinions the first time I saw it, I have to say I was able to analyze its merits much more clearly once I separated the two things in my brain. Just mentioning all that as a preparatory fyi as knowing all of it going in really helps.)

All that aside, this is a tremendous, archetypal classic.

I’ve never seen such dry, understated humor in an early western. Little flashes here and there that are so unexpected and spot on. I end up smiling all over repeatedly.

A lot of time and space is given to developing the complexities of Doc Holliday’s character. This Doc is mercurial, reckless, embittered -- a tortured soul with nothing to lose. 

He’s such a brilliant foil for Wyatt Earp. And the development of the relationship + the character contrast between the two men is fascinating.

Henry Fonda has become one of my favorite western leads and this may very well be my favorite of his that I’ve seen. He handles the part so well. Throughout the story we have vengeance, justice… and the everyday. So much of the drama revolves around the main character with the other characters swirling round him like a tempestuous rising flood around a rock. It made me think so much about how you can’t control everyone around you. You can’t manage all their big feelings and mess and prior attachments / back story. But you can be an anchor. From a storytelling perspective, I found it so ingenious. To have a character surrounded by that turmoil... actively involved, but outside the maelstrom, radiating steadfastness... I really liked it.

The gunfight is purposefully almost incidental to the story. It’s like the point of it all is the little everyday-ish moments. The mythic distilling right down into the everyday. And that’s right up my alley. I love it so much.

The way the film was shot is also stunning. Some moments are absolutely epic.

The plot is so measured throughout, but, specifically at the end with Pa Clanton, there’s definitely some food for thought re the relationship between careful justice and vengeance.

Speaking of the legendary gunfight itself... there’s no background music, which I found very impactful. The whole thing is so rooted, grounded.

After all that -- after the shoot-out and the death -- the ending is so sweet! Simple, charmingly awkward, and so sweet. 

I know I’ve said this before about specific westerns… But there’s this superb quality that great westerns do so well… that of later growing to colossal size in the mind and heart and soul. And this has that. It’s humble, sturdy, magnificent… And I absolutely love it.