My Darling Clementine

"What kinda town is this anyway? Selling liquor to indians!"

There have been many film versions of the Wyatt Earp-Clanton gunfight in Tombstone, but I dare say that John Ford's take, My Darling Clementine, is the definitive account (despite deviating from historical fact quite liberally). Featuring Henry Fonda in one of his iconically all-American performances as Earp, this film shows what can be done by a Western master directing an acting legend at the height of their respective careers in a story that represents one of the cornerstones of Western mythology. It's the stuff of golden eras, and no self-respecting film or Western fan can live their life without having seen it. Okay, maybe that's overkill, but trust me - it's a good'un.

Wyatt Earp and his brothers are cattlemen passing through Tombstone in the 1880s. They're naive to the roughness of the area and cross paths with the Clanton family, who steal the cattle and murder one of Wyatt's brothers. Earp, a former sheriff from Dodge City, decides to take on the post of Marshall in the lawless town of Tombstone in order to seek vengeance for the death of his brother. A feud begins simmering between the Clantons and the Earps, and Wyatt strikes up an uneasy alliance with the town's charismatically reckless dentist Doc Holliday (Victor Mature).

At the heart of Ford's version of the story (and most other versions seen since) is a character study of the relationship between Earp and Holliday. Fonda's idealistic screen persona is used to good effect as the fair-minded, moralistic and sheepishly sincere lawkeeper - an unassuminfg contrast to the more complex Holliday, a cultured man of hidden depths who's fighting a losing battle with consumption. When the two characters first meet, Wyatt keeps his cool while Holliday flexes his alpha muscles, a precarious exchange of intimidation and restraint where each man sizes the other up and judges their capability. A sense of unlikely respect grows between the two, and they're united by their strength of character. So, with such an emphasis on this bromance, it doesn't come as too much surprise when Earp's big 'romantic' moment with the girl climaxes only with a boyish kiss on the cheek and an unrequited hope for something more. The viewer doesn't really mind this either because there has already been closure for his relationship with Holliday, which is totally the main relationship in the film.

Ford has such a great eye for grand visual compositions, making this a masterfully crafted depiction of a familiar tale. It's superbly cast, with Walter Brennan also playing against type as the villainous Old Man Clanton. The scene where he shotguns a character in the back without any warning is unusually shocking for a '40s western, and Brennan plays it ice cold. Anyway, this is pretty much the archetypal Western, as seen painted across the mythologised landscape of the west by the genre's filmic god.

DIRECTOR: John Ford
WRITER/SOURCE: Samuel G. Engel and Winston Miller.
KEY ACTORS: Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Linda Darnell, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt, Ward Bond, John Ireland, Jane Darwell

RELATED TEXTS:
- Other film versions of the infamous gunfight at Tombstone include Tombstone the Town Too Tough to Die, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Frontier Marshal, Wyatt Earp and Tombstone. It was also featured in the 1960s Doctor Who serial, The Gunfighters.
- See also Dodge City and Hour of the Gun.
- Ford and Fonda also collaborated on the films Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, The Battle of Midway, The Fugitive, Fort Apache, Mister Roberts and How the West Was Won.