• My Darling Clementine

10/7/23 (Sat)

John Ford’s 1946 version of the OK Corral gunfight shows a civilization in the throes of creation, a community coming together in a spartan desert territory as it sets the laws and values that it wants to live by. Much the same process was explored in the musical Oklahoma! just three years earlier.

Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) accepts the position of marshal of Tombstone after losing his cattle and teenage son to rustlers. It’s clear to him that the villains were Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan) and his four sons, but he continues to operate within the law and bides his time. His presence is not welcomed by the town boss Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), a brooding man with a taste for champagne, Shakespeare and a fiery Latina prostitute named Chihuahua (Linda Darnell). The picture is complicated when Doc’s previous flame Clementine (Cathy Downs) arrives from Boston, having finally tracked him in hopes of taking him back. This prompts Doc to take off for Tucson. Wyatt is taken by Clementine, and romance seems to be in the cards. But when he discovers that Chihuahua is wearing his murdered brother’s pendant, it sets off a series of incidents that ends in the famed showdown at the corral. Having avenged his brother’s death, Wyatt returns his badge and leaves for the west. He gives a shy goodbye to Clementine, assuring her that he’ll look her up if he’s ever back in the area.

The story is less about the vendetta and final showdown than about the personalities involved and, more broadly, how they interact in a community that is still feeling its way into a society. When Wyatt’s shave is interrupted by gunfire, he calmly brings down the wild-shooting drunk not by shooting back but by sneaking in from behind and knocking him down. He then sends the man away rather than lock him up. When the hot-headed Doc pulls a gun, the unarmed Wyatt simply makes it known that his brothers are around and watching; in a similar setup later, he shoots the gun out of Doc’s hand rather than kill him. Society comes together slowly but surely with the construction of a church, Wyatt’s cool defense of the law, and above all the presence of the refined Clementine, especially her decision at the end to stay in Tombstone and set up a school (reminiscent of the end of Once Upon a Time in the West). The scene where she walks slowly with Wyatt to the event and dances with him is especially wonderful from that perspective. There’s a reason that the film is named after her rather than the climactic gunfight. The vast unchanging scenery of Monument Valley (caught so well when Wyatt first sees Tombstone dwarfed by the hills) contrasts singularly with the small manmade town still coming into its own.

Ford gives this an epic feel, especially in the breathtaking scenic shots, making the rocks, sands and even the clouds virtually a part of the story. It’s the best use of Monument Valley that I can remember. Fonda, Mature, Darnell and Brennan are all at their very best, though Downs is rather passive in the title role. I’m not sure why Doc had to be consumptive with all that coughing, which added nothing to the role, and surely Wyatt’s climactic parting from Clementine could have been more romantic than the laughable peck on the cheek and handshake (could have been worse – Ford supposedly didn’t even want the kiss). But all in all, the film catches the human side in a way that few Westerns do. It’s theme is similar to Once Upon a Time but on a more human scale. Both are essential.