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My Darling Clementine [1946]


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A superb film with Ford, Fonda, Mature and Brennan at their peak
Review date: 2007-06-11 Rating: 10 out of 10

Here is a movie which practically hums with excellence, from the star performances of Henry Fonda, Victor Mature and Walter Brennan to the extraordinary craftsmanship of director John Ford. I've watched a lot of Ford movies; many I like and many I don't. My Darling Clementine is, in my view, Ford's most accomplished film. The movie may seem to be about a gun fight showdown, or about the wary relationship between Wyatt Earp and John Holliday, or about a shy romance between an upright man with little experience with love and a proper young woman who decides to be a school marm, or about honor and justice and retribution. It's all of this. Most of all, it's about how the west changed. Ford shows us not through big gestures and symbolic, obvious actions, but through the little gestures of some good people and some extremely well-crafted set pieces.

The Earp brothers led by Wyatt (Henry Fonda) have their cattle rustled and their youngest brother, James, killed just outside the wild town of Tombstone. Earp is sure Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan) and his four sons are responsible. He decides to stay awhile as Marshal and see about a little legal retribution. He encounters John Holliday (Victor Mature), a self-loathing former doctor, now a quick-shooting killer and gambler, ill with tuberculosis, who runs things in the saloon and is drinking himself to death. Holliday has had a relationship for quite a while with a bargirl named Chihuahua (Linda Darnel). Then Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs) shows up on a stage from back east looking for Holliday. She loves him and wants to rescue him. And Earp finds himself thinking that Clementine is the nicest, prettiest woman he's ever met. "I love your town in the morning, Marshal," she tells him. "The air is so clean and clear...the scent of the desert flower." Says Earp, a little shyly, "That's me...barber."

All these story threads are weaving in and out as the Earps press Old Man Clanton, as Wyatt and Doc nearly kill each other a couple of times, as they discover a medallion that was worn by young James Earp which was given to Chihuahua by the youngest Clanton. Before long a Clanton and another Earp are dead and the showdown at the OK Corral is set for sunup the next morning.

What satisfying delights Ford and his actors give us. There's Fonda's Wyatt Earp, a natural gentleman, shy with a "nice" woman, something of a killer himself. There's Victor Mature's John Holliday, self-loathing, honorable when it matters, a headstrong killer ready to gun down anyone who crosses him. And there's Walter Brennan's Old Man Clanton, just plain mean, a back shooter, a cattle rustler, an old man who always carries a horsewhip and doesn't hesitate to use it on his own sons. "When you pull a gun," he snarls at them, "shoot a man."

The set pieces are powerful and poignant, but they always advance the story and build up the characters. The first meeting between Wyatt Earp and Old Man Clanton out in the scrub. Without being in the least obvious Brennan lets us know Clanton is going to be trouble. Alan Mobray as the alcoholic, over-the-hill actor who is going to recite Shakespeare for the townspeople, encounters the Clanton boys in a bar. They force him to recite 'To be or not to be..." while they shame him...until Holliday intervenes. When Mobray falters and asks Holliday to continue, Holliday picks up the lines "....but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will." It's a sad moment for Holliday and for us. Fonda on horseback chasing after Holliday who is seated next to the driver on a stage. The horses are running their lungs out and Holliday isn't letting up. Earp catches him and there is a showdown which is quick and efficient. Earp on the porch leaning back on the rear legs of his chair, a boot bracing himself on a railing. Earp and Clementine at the church social when he invites her to dance with a stiff bow. A serious look on his face changes to joy as they whirl around.

The showdown at the Corral is a textbook piece of editing. The whole sequence from the walk to the corral to the final shooting takes only nine minutes. The actual gunplay lasts only one minute. It's dramatic but matter-of-fact. When it's over the old West is done for and the new West, with school marms, is starting. And we realize this by all that we've seen during the prior hour and a half, not just because of a 60-second shootout.

Not only, in my view, is My Darling Clementine John Ford's best movie, it has to be one of Henry Fonda's strongest and most subtle performances. I think he'd easily land among the top two or three on any list of America's best film actors. He shows why with this film.

If you have an all-region DVD player, consider getting The 20th Century Fox Film Classic Region 1 DVD. It comes with the July 1946 preview version which is largely Ford's and the October 1946 release version which had some substantial editing overseen by Darryl F. Zanuck, scenes re-shot and a more obtrusive film score added where Ford had wanted natural background sounds. There is a fascinating interview with Robert Gitt, who did the restoration work at the UCLA Film and Television Archives. He not only describes and shows what his work involved, but also the changes which Zanuck insisted on. Except for the music score additions, I think Zanuck was right. After hearing Gitt and looking at the comparisons, it was the release version I watched. It's an instructive example of just how limited a director's rights can be when the top guy decides to exercise his authority.

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Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Henry Fonda
Victor Mature
Jane Darwell
Linda Darnell
Walter Brennan

Creators:
Henry Fonda (Primary Contributor)
Jane Darwell (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
EAN: 5039036025447
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: Black & White, PAL,
Release date: 2006-02-27
Audience rating: Universal, suitable for all
Region code: 2
Running time: 92 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1946
Language: English (Original Language)

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