- This article is about the John Ford Western. For the song, see Oh My Darling, Clementine. For the 1943 Roy Acuff film, see O, My Darling Clementine.
My Darling Clementine, a 1946 film, regarded as one of the best Western movies made by Director John Ford, stars Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp during the period leading up to Gunfight at the OK Corral. The ensemble cast also features Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt 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 I Married Wyatt Earp by Stuart Lake, as were two earlier movies, both named Frontier Marshal (shot in 1934 and 1939). Clementine incorporated elements from Sam Hellman's screenplay for the 1939 film, which was directed by Alan Dwan. Ford reshot some scenes from the earlier film for
Plot
In 1882 (in reality, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral happened on Oct 26, 1881), Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil and James Earp are driving cattle to California when they cross Old Man Clanton, played by Walter Brennan. When they learn about the nearby boom town of Tombstone, the older brothers ride in, leaving the youngest brother James to watch over the cattle. The Earps soon learn that Tombstone is a lawless town without a marshal. Wyatt is the only man in the town willing face the drunkard Indian shooting at the townspeople. When they return to their camp, they find the cattle rustled and James murdered.
Seeking to avenge his brother's murder, Wyatt returns to Tombstone. To identify the perpetrator, he takes the open position of town marshal and meets with Doc Holliday and the Clanton gang several times. During this time, a young woman from Boston named Clementine Carter arrives in town, and is given a room at the same hotel where both Wyatt and Doc Holliday are residing.
Cast
- Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp
- Victor Mature as Dr. John Henry "Doc" Holliday
- Cathy Downs as Clementine Carter, Doc's ex-lover
- Linda Darnell as Chihuahua
- Walter Brennan as Newman Haynes Clanton, cattleman
- Tim Holt as Virgil Earp
- Ward Bond as Morgan Earp
- Don Garner as James Earp
- Grant Withers as Ike Clanton
- John Ireland as Billy Clanton
- Alan Mowbray as Granville Thorndyke, stage actor
- Roy Roberts as Mayor
- Jane Darwell as Kate Nelson
- J. Farrell MacDonald as Mac the barman
Plot devices
The final script of the movie varies considerably from historical fact to create additional dramatic conflict and character. Clementine Carter is not a historical person, and in this script appears to be an amalgam of Big Nose Kate and Josephine Earp. Unlike the movie characters, the Earps were never cowboys, drovers, or cattle owners. Important plot devices in the film and personal details about the main characters were all liberally adapted for the movie.
Old Man Clanton actually died prior to the gunfight and probably never met any of the Earps. Doc was– a dentist, not a surgeon, and ––survived the shoot out. James Earp, who was the first to die in the story, actually lived until 1926. The key women in Wyatt's and Doc's livesâ€"Wyatt's common law wife Josephine and Doc's common-law wife Big Nose Kateâ€"were not present in Lake's original story and were kept out of the movie as well. The film gives the date of the gunfight as 1882 when it actually occurred in 1881.
Origins
In 1931, Stuart Lake published the first biography two years after Earp's death. Lake retold the story in the 1946 book My Darling Clementine for which Ford acquired the film rights. The two books have since been determined to be largely fictionalized stories about the Earp brothers and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and their conflict with the outlaw Cowboys Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and his brother Frank McLaury. The gunfight was relatively unknown to the American public until Lake published the two books and after the movie was made.
Director John Ford said that when he was a prop boy in the early days of silent pictures, Earp would visit pals he knew from his Tombstone days on the sets."I used to give him a chair and a cup of coffee, and he told me about the fight at the O.K. Corral. So in My Darling Clementine, we did it exactly the way it had been.†Ford was working on his last silent feature Hangman's House in 1928, which included the first credited screen appearances by John Wayne. John Wayne later told Hugh O'Brian that he based his image of the Western lawman on his conversations with Earp. Ford didn't want to make the movie, but his contract required him to make one more movie for 20th Century Fox.
In their later years Wyatt and Josephine Earp worked hard to eliminate any mention of Josephine's previous relationship with Johnny Behan or Wyatt's previous common law marriage to Matty Blaylock. They successfully kept Josephine's name out of Lake's biography of Wyatt and after he died, Josephine threatened to sue the movie producers to keep it that way. Lake corresponded with Josephine, and he claimed she attempted to influence what he wrote and hamper him in every way possible, including consulting lawyers. Josephine insisted she was striving to protect Wyatt Earp’s legacy.
After the movie Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was released in 1957, the shootout came to be known by that name. Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books.
Production notes
Much of the film was shot in Monument Valley, a scenic desert region straddling the Arizona-Utah border used in other John Ford movies. After seeing a preview screening of the film, 20th Century Fox studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck felt Ford's original cut was too long and had some weak spots, so he had Lloyd Bacon shoot new footage and heavily edited the film. Zanuck had Bacon cut 30 minutes from the film.
While Ford's original cut of the film has not survived, a "pre-release" cut â€" dating from a few months after the preview screening â€" was discovered in the UCLA film archives; this version preserves some additional footage as well as alternative scoring and editing. UCLA film preservationist Robert Gitt edited a version of the film that incorporates some of the earlier version. Perhaps the most significant change is the film's ending; in Ford's original version, Earp awkwardly shakes hands with Clementine Carter. In the version released in 1946, Earp kisses her on the cheek.
Critical reception
The film is generally regarded as one of the best Westerns made by John Ford and one of his best films overall.
At the time of its release, Bosley Crowther lauded the film and wrote, "The eminent director, John Ford, is a man who has a way with a Western like nobody in the picture trade. Seven years ago his classic Stagecoach snuggled very close to fine art in this genre. And now, by George, he's almost matched it with My Darling Clementine...But even with standard Western fictionâ€"and that's what the script has enjoinedâ€"Mr. Ford can evoke fine sensations and curiously-captivating moods. From the moment that Wyatt and his brothers are discovered on the wide and dusty range, trailing a herd of cattle to a far-off promised land, a tone of pictorial authority is struckâ€"and it is held. Every scene, every shot is the product of a keen and sensitive eyeâ€"an eye which has deep comprehension of the beauty of rugged people and a rugged world".
Variety magazine wrote, "Trademark of John Ford's direction is clearly stamped on the film with its shadowy lights, softly contrasted moods and measured pace, but a tendency is discernible towards stylization for the sake of stylization. At several points, the pic comes to a dead stop to let Ford go gunning for some arty effect". The film has received a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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; the film is among the first 75 films entered into the registry. 50 years after its release, Roger Ebert reviewed the film and included it in his list of The Great Movies.
In 2004, Matt Bailey summarized the film and its significance, writing "If there is one film that deserves every word of praise ever uttered or written about it, it is John Ford’s My Darling Clementine. Perhaps the greatest film in a career full of great films, arguably the finest achievement in a rich and magnificent genre, and undoubtedly the best version of one of America’s most enduring myths, the film is an undeniable and genuine classic."
In popular culture
Director Sam Peckinpah considered My Darling Clementine his favorite Western, and paid homage to it in several of his Westerns, including Major Dundee (1965) and The Wild Bunch (1969).
In the popular TV series, M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter's favorite film is My Darling Clementine. Clips from the film are shown in the season 5 episode, "Movie Tonight".
In the Paul Thomas Anderson's movie "Hard Eight" the lead character played by Gwyneth Paltrow is named Clementine and in a scene she is addressed as " My darling Clementine".
- See also: Other depictions of the gunfight and story
References
External links
- My Darling Clementine at the Internet Movie Database
- My Darling Clementine at the TCM Movie Database
- My Darling Clementine at AllMovie
- My Darling Clementine at the American Film Institute Catalog