My Darling Clementine



My Darling Clementine is a 1946 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp during the period leading up to the gunfight at the OK Corral. The ensemble cast also features Victor Mature (as Doc Holliday), Linda Darnell, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt, Cathy Downs and Ward Bond.

The title of the movie is borrowed from the theme song "Oh My Darling, Clementine", sung in parts over the opening and closing credits. The screenplay is based on the fictionalized biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart Lake, as were two earlier movies, both named Frontier Marshal (released in 1934 and 1939, respectively).

My Darling Clementine is regarded by many film critics as one of the best Westerns ever made. In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry; it was among the first 75 films entered into the registry.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) John Ford bends history with his films yet again with his dramatization of Wyatt Earp and subversion of the traditional western. Most westerns put the emphasis on the showdown. This film on the other hand, builds up to the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral, but it is more about everyday things--haircuts, romance, friendship, poker and illness. Daily realities of life on the frontier is an essential aspect of the film. (How horses were handled, or how the dead were buried) Small details (the oil lamps, the burritos for sale on a theater, the sparks flying from a gun barrel) give the film an authority missing from most films at the time. It really help to connect with the characters more.
 * 2) Despite the film having tons of historical inaccuracy with the legendary Wyatt Earp's life and the showdown, the film makes up for it with the amazing traditional Western action. Ford was aiming for a larger canvas than the travails of a gambler-turned-sportswriter who wanted to justify his disreputable background. He was trying to define in his own terms the passing of the Western frontier, a pivotal moment in history. To do so, he stripped down the Western genre to its most basic elements.
 * 3) *It's built around the typical conflicts: Between the entrenched evil symbolized by the Clanton family and the lesser evil of the Earp brothers; between Eastern culture in the form of Boston exile Doc Holliday and itinerant actor Granville Thorndyke and a more roughhewn frontier style of living; between church and state, friendship and duty, even handgun and rifle. Ford stages these in a landscape of staggering solitude, in night shadows that evoke Rembrandt, in the most powerful and compelling close-ups in the film.
 * 4) Henry Fonda's performance as Wyatt Earp is groundbreaking, along with most of the other portrayals from the cast.
 * 5) Well developed and complex characters with all of the central characters
 * 6) This take on Wyatt Earp is often shown as a man of action, but he's more of a new-style Westerner. And when one of his brothers dies, rather than just ride into town and shoot the suspect, he tells the mayor he'll become the new marshal. He wants revenge, but legally. He's vain, cold and only interested in avenging his brother.
 * 7) Doc Holliday is a gambler who runs Tombstone but is dying of tuberculosis. Something went wrong with his medical job back East, and now he gambles for a living, and drinks himself into oblivion.
 * 8) Holliday's mistress, Chihuahua is a clingy jealous girl towards Clementine, whom she sees as a threat to her relationship with Doc, but she's constantly mistreated and abused by the people of Tombstone for being half Apache, to the point where viewers can't help but pity her.
 * 9) Clementine -- who represents the new civilized Tombstone -- is more than just Earp's girlfriend. She's also a girl Doc had left behind. She has been seeking Doc all over the West, and wants to bring him home.
 * 10) About halfway through the film, the story takes a halt to focus on Granville Thorndyke (Alan Mowbray), the star of the frontier equivalent of a medicine show. His scenes serve several narrative functions: to escalate the tensions between the Clantons and the Earps, to indicate how cultured Holliday is, to tighten his bond with Wyatt, etc.
 * 11) Each of Earp's meetings are fraught with danger, and the film's violence is raw shocking, and yet the film also contains hope in the form of one of Ford's great set pieces, a church service that turns into a social.
 * 12) The cinematography is spectacular, both in the wide open panoramas and in the more intimate personal scenes.
 * 13) The scene where Fonda's Earp sat balancing a chair on the porch in front of a motel, is a humorous scene, as well as one of John Ford's most notable touches and ideas provided by his trademarks within the film.
 * 14) Earp and Holliday share an important and fantastic relationship. They are natural enemies, but a quiet, unspoken regard grows up between the two men.
 * 15) At one point in the film Doc and Earp seem headed for a showdown. But they have a scene together that so strange and yet so beautiful. Alan Mowbray's character has come to town to put on a play, and when he doesn't show up at the theater, Earp and Holliday find him in the saloon, on top of a table, being tormented by the Clantons. The actor begins Hamlet's famous soliloquy, but is too drunk and frightened to continue. Doc Holliday, from memory, completes the speech, and could be speaking of himself.
 * 16) Wyatt and Clementine dancing to “Shall We Gather at the River?” is a major turning point in the film.
 * 17) The film left a major influence on future filmmakers, with some of the most notable being Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone, using inspiration from Ford's techniques. Not to mention the entire school of spaghetti Westerns that sprang from the film.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) Various historical inaccuracies:
 * 2) *Tombstone in the film is surrounded by beautiful Monument Valley, located in the N. Arizona/Utah area. Tombstone is actually in the southern part of Arizona. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, the town boomed after the discovery of silver in a strike in 1877. After a peak population of about 7,000 people, most moved away within a few years when profits dried up.
 * 3) *Wyatt Earp was a figure in history, both a lawman and a gambler. He was known for keeping company with the saloon crowd in the frontier cattle and mining towns, for gambling, for being a confidence man, and for associating with prostitutes and pimps. Compared to other lawmen of the time, he was probably no worse than most of them. There is no solid historical evidence to indicate that he was involved in many deadly gunfights and face-offs. During his years as a Dodge City lawman, he is thought to have killed only one man. After moving to Tombstone, the Earps developed a more 'respectable' reputation, aligning themselves with the Establishment - Republican businessmen. This put them at odds with local cowboys - which included the Clantons.
 * 4) *There were five Earp brothers - the fifth one not in the film was Warren. James was not the youngest - he was actually older than Wyatt.
 * 5) *James Earp was not murdered by the Clantons, but lived long after the events depicted in the film.
 * 6) *For an upcoming political contest (for Sheriff of Cochise County) in which Wyatt was rumored to be planning to run against incumbent Sheriff John Behan, Holliday (and possibly the Earps themselves) were accused by the Behan/Clanton/"cowboys" of being involved in the March 1881 robbery of a stagecoach. Refusing to be embarrassed by the charges, Earp counter-accused Behan of protecting the Clantons and other cowboys responsible for the stage robberies. The charges against Doc were eventually dismissed. The political struggle escalated and became heated when Behan's beautiful mistress, Josephine Marcus, left him and became the 'common-law' wife of Wyatt for the remainder of his life. The feuding sides opposed each other at the O.K. Corral over disagreements and accusations involving stage robbery and other simmering hatreds - the gunfight was not the direct result of retribution for the deaths of James and Virgil Earp and Billy Clanton.
 * 7) *The feud between the Clantons and the Earps was not only a few days in length, but lasted over a long period of time. It had nothing to do with stealing cattle, and more to do with the long-standing conflict in SE Arizona between the Republican business community (to which the Earps were aligned) and the Democratic ranchers/cowboys of the countryside (to which the Clantons were aligned).
 * 8) *In the film, the year is 1882. The actual gunfight was on October 26, 1881. On that day, Virgil Earp was Marshal in Tombstone and Wyatt was only a deputy.
 * 9) *Old Man (Newman) Clanton wasn't at the O.K. Corral. He was killed before the gunfight occurred, in a retaliatory action in Guadalupe Canyon, Mexico by Mexican soldiers against the cattle-rustling thief (August, 1881).
 * 10) *Virgil Earp was not killed before the fight, but was wounded in it. Billy Clanton was not killed prior to the O.K. Corral shootout either.
 * 11) *Doc Holliday (formerly a dentist, not a doctor) was not killed in the O.K. Corral gunfight, but died of tuberculosis about six years later. (He was born in Griffin, GA, Aug. 14, 1851, and died in a hotel in Glenwood Springs, CO, Nov. 8, 1887.) Originally, he had come West to relieve his tubercular condition. He visited a sanitarium for its "healing" springs.
 * 12) *Who actually was killed or wounded in the gunfight? - Ike Clanton ran and escaped injury. Billy Clanton was killed along with other Clanton supporters (Tom and Frank McLaury not in the film). Virgil and Morgan Earp were wounded. Doc Holliday was slightly wounded. The undertaker displayed the bodies in his window.
 * 13) *After the confrontation, Holliday and Wyatt were arrested. In an inquest, Republican justice of the peace Wells Spicer refused to indict them, judging that they had been acting in their proper roles as lawmen. They walked from the charges - and the feud continued. Within a few weeks after the inquest, Virgil was gunned down and badly wounded. Morgan was killed by unknown assailants. Wyatt became a deputy US Marshal, and with Holliday and others, led a retaliatory rampage against their cowboy enemies. Then, they fled Tombstone.
 * 14) *The historic O.K. Corral incident was over in a few seconds. Eyewitnesses couldn't agree what happened when it was all over. It will never be clear who drew and fired first

The Film
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