From the 1940s: My Darling Clementine

1946 Western

From 20th Century Fox

Directed by John Ford

Starring

Henry Fonda

Linda Darnell

Victor Mature

Cathy Downs

Walter Brennan

Tim Holt

Ward Bond

Alan Mowbray

John Ireland

Grant Withers

Jane Darwell

Roy Roberts

I think I have always stayed away from reviewing this film because I have not thought I would do it justice.  If that's not quite right then I would say I would not join the chorus that sang out about it being the greatest western ever made.  I do not think it's the greatest western ever made but hopefully you who do will allow me to say it's one of the greatest westerns ever made.

You might think then I would at least say it's the greatest western that John Ford ever made.  I would prefer to say it is the greatest western that Ford made that didn't star John Wayne.  Hey, c'mon, that's not so bad, is it... really?

The western film is so a part of my psyche that I don't ever want to hear myself say anything negative about a revered film of the genre.  So I think I once subconsciously decided that I would just avoid writing anything about Clementine except as it might be mentioned when I am doing a piece on one of its participants.  

So what's up here then?  Why is it today's subject?  Well, shucks, I watched it the other day-- haven't seen it in years-- and I was again so taken by some of the things it does so well.  So I thought... oh hell, just get in there and say what I have in mind and let's just see where it lands.

Let's deal first with what I have never liked about it and still don't.  It's the fact that it is about the gunfight at the O.K. Corral which is almost entirely fictional not only from the point of view of this film but also other films and history, in general.  There is, of course, the true version, some of which we will share at the end, but folks seem to want to hear the baloney because we love our folklore and its heroes.

The O.K. Corral story has been done a number of times.  There were the 1934 and 1939 versions, Frontier Marshall, then this one, then 1957's The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, 1967's Hour of the Gun, 1993's Tombstone and 1994's Wyatt Earp.  Most are highly fictional although Hour of the Gun may have scored the highest points on truth-telling.  Clementine goes so far in its fiction that it kills off Doc Holliday in the shootout which did not happen. That just grosses me out, frankly.  And of course how could the retelling in any film be anything more than b.s. when the real gunfight lasted only about 30 seconds?

Whether the true or fictional version, all the ruckus back in Tombstone was about a feud between two families... the Earp brothers, Wyatt (Fonda), Virgil (Holt) and Morgan (Bond) and the Clanton clan, a father (Brennan) and several sons.  The Clantons are always portrayed as hateful and the Earps were usually portrayed as good guys which is creative.

The brothers Earp... Bond, Fonda & Holt

The film opens with the Earps, including brother James, taking a herd of cattle to California.  Outside of Tombstone they come across Clanton and his sons.  Clanton wants to buy the herd but Wyatt says no.  Clanton tells them they're close to Tombstone, a wild, wide-open town, and they might enjoy shaking off the dust and go in for some drinks in the evening.  

In town while Wyatt is in the barber chair, some drunk is shooting up the town and when several bullets enter the shop, Wyatt, face full of shaving cream, marches out and easily dispatches the offending fellow.  He comments about what an unruly town it is.  When they return to their campsite during the early morning, the herd is gone and James is dead.  Wyatt hightails it back to town and volunteers to be the town marshal as long as his brothers are deputies.  He aims to bring about law and order while keeping an eye out for his brother's killer.

Earp approaches Holliday in a classically-staged Ford scene

We meet the tuberculin Doc Holliday (Mature), his singing saloon hostess girlfriend, Chihuahua (Darnell), and soon the woman he left behind, Clementine (Downs).  When Wyatt first meets Doc, the latter has thrown someone out of town.  When Wyatt questions him about it, Doc says it's his town and is run his way.  Wyatt tells him he's the law now and he 

is the one who decides who stays and goes.  There's a little nervousness over two gunslingers at odds but they form a rough peace throughout a cautious friendship.

There's a contentious scene between Wyatt and Chihuahua outside the saloon where he confronts her over helping someone cheat at his poker table.  Enraged at the accusation, Chihuahua slaps him hard across the face and he pushes her down in a horse trough.  It's one of the few fun scenes with both actors delivering the goods.

We see what a tight family tie those Earp boys have.  All versions of this story seem to get that part right... they genuinely loved one another and had each others' backs.  In real life there were seven children and one half-brother and the kids were a nomadic group.  Wyatt was not quite the squeaky clean guy he is usually portrayed to be.  

This version and one or two others feel the need to give Wyatt a girlfriend.  Downs' Clementine and Rhonda Fleming's Laura in the 1957 version are just plain made up.  Why?  Isn't Wyatt's story (and that which happened after the big gunfight) compelling enough without a fictional girlfriend?  Why not spend the time letting us learn more about the Earp brothers, sadly forsaken here.

Mature in arguably his best role

The story picks up steam when Wyatt breaks up a kerfuffle between Clementine and Chihuahua and discovers a medallion around the latter's neck that brother James had been wearing when he was killed.  When Wyatt asks where she got it, she lies and says Doc gave it to her. 

Wyatt, therefore, assumes that Doc is the one who killed his brother.  But Doc left town a few hours earlier on the stage.  Wyatt heads out to get him.  The fast ride even included a change of horses for Wyatt.  I haven't the adjectives to describe how beautifully filmed this ride, the stagecoach, the night and the countryside are. 

Wyatt and Doc return to town when Doc says Chihuahua lied and they go to her room to get things straight.  Doc hadn't known that Chihuahua was carrying on with Billy Clanton (Ireland) after Doc broke up with her.  When they hear someone approaching her door, Clanton bolts from her room but waits in the dark outside her window.  The two men browbeat her into telling her the truth and when Clanton hears Chihuahua name him, he shoots her. 

Wyatt and others insist Doc operate on her.  He does but isn't able to save her.  I always laugh because in real life Doc Holliday was a dentist and I have always assumed that Chihuahua must have been shot in the teeth.  Oh, what a jokester.

Of course, knowing the truth leads to the Clantons and of course the great shootout.  Doc is killed as are all the Clantons except the old man.  Even after admitting that he killed James and later Virgil, Wyatt lets him go, which I never understood.  But as the old man climbs on his horse, he pulls out his gun and Morgan kills him. 

The final scene is Wyatt leaving town.  He says goodbye to Clementine who has decided to stay around to become the schoolmarm.  We know they have a yen for one another.  He says maybe he'll get back again.  The gentle kiss on the cheek Fonda gives Downs is touching and a little wistful.  Another longshot shows the vastness of the land, grand and tough is one of those Ford signature closings.

The famous fadeout

The majesty of the film comes from its stunning look, Ford's superb direction and the fine acting of the entire cast.  It isn't in color but rather in gorgeous black and white.  I've always felt color was made to showcase the great outdoors and although I haven't changed my mind, I have widened my stance and made room for a western this stunningly presented.

Of course, I am a sucker for Monument Valley... the site for most of Ford's westerns.  It is beautifully captured by Joe MacDonald, who, oddly, had never worked for Ford before or since.  MacDonald had photographed a number of westerns and also several film noirs and he brought that noir look to this western... the lighting, shadows, wet streets.  The over-all look reminded me of an old newsreel of some western town.  There is an air of authenticity that makes this film quite special for the western lover.

A noir look for Clementine

Ford, the great mythmaker, the western storyteller supreme, brought a quiet feel to this one.  He slowed the pace down to tell a story about people.  That he shows such vulnerability in his leading male roles is impressive.  Of course he didn't write the story but his hand is in every aspect of his westerns.  

Despite Ford's fame as a western director, My Darling Clementine was only his second western (talkie), having not done one since Stagecoach in 1939.  Clementine is regarded as his jumping off point for all of those westerns to come.   

Ford actually met Earp and was likely taken by the fact that he met one of the west's most historical characters.  He had a special way he wanted the laconic Earp portrayed and judged there would be no one better than Fonda to take that on.

Aaah, that acting... these actors.  Fonda plays Earp as a gentleman who stands up when a woman enters the room, dances the reel and becomes gently smitten with the woman who is discarded by Doc.  It was Fonda's fourth film for Ford and his first western for him.  (Drums Along the Mohawk was not a western.)  Ford knew well that Fonda's qualities were what he wanted for Earp.  He wanted someone understated and not larger than life which is certainly why he didn't pick John Wayne for the role.

Wyatt relaxing with Fonda's approval

I think this is Mature's best film.  It shows he had matured as an actor.  The grandiose posturing is gone.  He never takes off his shirt, he barely smiles.  He would return to all that and more in his fifties' biblical epics but for now, in this film, the man held his own.  He knew he needed to be good.  He brings a pathos to the alcoholic, gambling doctor.  Here is a broken man, a step or two ahead of the undertaker, who has found no peace.  Life has clearly not worked out.

I saw Clementine years after it was made and had already gathered an opinion of Mature from Samson and Deliah, The Robe, Demetrius and the Gladiators and numerous glamour-boy parts.  I didn't think he had the cojones to pull off Doc Holliday in a Ford flick.  I concerned myself that he might be hammy and after all, there were some good examples of that.  But old Vic pulled it off.  He would finish out the decade with some solid noir performances, too.

I wasn't dazzled with either one of the women's roles.  The actresses were fine, the characters were ho-hum.  Darnell's role is wholly made-up in the history of things although it's likely such ladies enjoyed spending time with such a famous man.  It looked good on her dance card.  Darnell could play the voluptuous vixen in her sleep.  She doesn't deserve this second billing but her name on the marquee of a shoot-em-up was gold for Fox.

And really, Clementine was a famous western song (oh my darling...) that cleverly weaved its way into the story. It's equally doubtful that this character is real or even based on someone real.  Cathy Downs was never a household name and didn't make many movies with this one clearly her best.  Unless the reason for her was to show there were decent people or women in the west or that Wyatt needed someone to be tender to, I'm not sure why she's here.

I've mentioned that peck on the cheek that Fonda gives her at the finale and how touching it was to me and, I'm sure, others.  It came about because studio head Darryl Zanuck, upon viewing the film in a raw look, insisted that the scene be added, which infuriated Ford.

While we're in this area and you know I've been fussy over some film titles before, this one is terrible.  I don't care that it's a famous western song.  So was Tumblin' Tumbleweeds.  What does it have to do with anything?  Why name it for a secondary character in a film that features real-life people? Why?  And I almost hate to go here but really... Darling?  I just can't imagine that some big, burly, pot-bellied, hairy cowboy fan being comfortable saying to his bros... let's go catch My Darling Clementine.   They don't say darling.

Chihuahua Darnell

Excepting Ward Bond and a couple of others, Ford's usual company of actors is not in this film because the company had not been formed, certainly not to the extent that it would be.  

Holt had an acting father but the young actor was mainly a cowboy star in the those early cowboy flicks that one saw on early Saturday mornings and flooded television when it first came about.  (I don't mean to imply that I actually remember that.)  He was good-looking and not a bad actor at all.  He did make it into Stella Dallas, Stagecoach, Back Street, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and this one but his movie career went nowhere. 

I loved Brennan as a bad guy and he is at his baddest here.  All versions of the Clanton clan paint its patriarch as a hateful, revenge-seeking murderer.  Brennan hated Ford and never worked for him again.  Legend has it that when the actor had trouble getting in the saddle, Ford yelled out 

can't you even get on a horse?  Brennan shouted back no but I got three Oscars for acting.

History has given the eldest Clanton son Ike some special notoriety and Grant Withers plays him with evil glee.  Ireland has little to do although he helps get that finale rolling.  It was only his fifth film.  He may be the only actor to have made two O.K. Corral movies.   He was also in the 1957 version as someone named Johnny Ringo.

So yes, I very much liked this one.  Ford did it again.  Fonda did it again.  Mature did it.  I've always loved La Linda.  It's a cowboy flick filmed in famed Monument Valley that is a gorgeous picture postcard.  

I've just never understood why it had to be a fictional story.  The Earps may be folklore heroes but they weren't really heroes to people at the time.  Wyatt lived until 1929.  I'm guessing it was a pretty interesting life.  Why not tell that story.  Sure, include the gunfight at the O.K. Corral but make it a small part because that's all it was.  This was a good story about real-life warring families... why fictionalize it?  If today we told the life story of the famous Hatfields and McCoys, two more warring tribes, do we have to fictionalize it and have them visiting Dollywood? 

Tombstone in 1881

 

Here's the truth as I've read it:

James was not the youngest Earp brother but the oldest.

The fight between the Earps and the Clantons had nothing to do with James's death.  The shootout took place in 1881 and James died in 1926.

It was a 30-second shootout.

It did not take place at the O.K. Corral but rather six doors down on the side of a photography studio.

Wyatt was not the marshal of Tombstone but brother Virgil was.

Doc Holliday was not killed during the skirmish.

Doc and Wyatt did not meet in Tombstone.  They'd known one another a few years.

There was no Clanton father that figures in the real story and of those killed in the gunfight, one was a Clanton son and the other two were friends who were brothers.

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