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My Darling Clementine (1946)

Genre: Western

Director: John Ford

  Review

One of John Ford's best loved Westerns and it’s still a wonderful experience 60 years on.  Taking the old Wyatt Earp/Tombstone story Ford gives it a poetic, heroic turn that is far more interested in the legend than in the reality.  The Earp brothers are driving cattle but after turning down the offer to buy the herd from Old Man Clayton (Walter Brennan) they return one night from Tombstone to find the herd gone and younger brother James dead.  Rather than seeking revenge the old way they play it by the law with Wyatt (Henry Fonda) and Virgil (Ward Bond) taking up the posts of Marshall and deputy to try to impose civilisation on the as-yet untamed West.  To complicate matters Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), who seems to run Tombstone, returns, but after a sizing up stand-off settles into an uneasy truce with Wyatt that drifts towards friendship - a friendship tested by the arrival of Doc's old love, Clementine - he doesn't want to know her but Wyatt is somewhat keener.

My Darling Clementine
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What is fascinating about it is that although it has the legendary Gunfight at the OK Coral (which most versions have as the centre piece of the film) Ford is much more interested in the characters and how the unfolding events impact on them and their relationships.  Superb performances throughout from Fonda (reserved but beginning to open up under Clementine’s influence) and Mature (a normally wooden actor who gives a sad, sensitive reading to the doomed Doc Holiday) along with Ford's normal stock company.  The set pieces are brilliant - the arrival in driving rain - the dance in the open unbuilt church - the operation in the saloon (and Hamlet has never sounded more poignant)… all shot by Joe MacDonald who provides some of the best photography in cinema.  Whether it’s the breathtaking skies over Monument Valley or the fantastically lit interiors, with characters reduced to silhouettes.....each scene is just fabulous...

It’s light years away from the revisionist Westerns we're used to today but as a portrait of men prepared to take a stand for what they believe in and, if need be, pay the ultimate price, it takes some beating. 

One of the greatest Westerns ever made...

Reviewed by George Kaplan, Premier Movie Reviews 2006.

Main Cast

Henry Fonda

Linda Darnell

Victor Mature

Cathy Downs

Walter Brennan

Tim Holt

Ward Bond

Alan Mowbray

John Ireland

RATING

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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