John Ford is a master of pictures and set design. I dare to say that these elements are essential for a good western. MY DARLING CLEMENTINE is the story of the legendary sheriff Wyatt Earph and significant duel, peppered with a lot of fiction and taste. The definition of good and evil is too obvious and romance was put on the back burner. However, in addition to the above the western fiction is more than good.Dynamic action, rich pictures, great scenery and atmosphere are compelling in this film.The film, which just causes a good mood. All is well designed. Every shot, eye contact, understanding and misunderstanding in relationships and the ferocity of the people in a beautiful and cruel world. Stereotypes in the film are not trivial, but are simple.Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp is more a model of a man that is a healthy mind in relation to the strict and fair sheriff. The acting performance, full of confidence and calm, helped him in the best way to shows the moral cause of the main character.Victor Mature as Dr. John Henry "Doc" Holliday is a doctor poisonous with evil seed, which in turn becomes a good man. Very good performance and one of the most tragic figures in the classic western.Walter Brennan as Newman Haynes Clanton has all the characteristics of evil and poisonous desert rattlesnakes. Targeted negative character and indispensable in this film.Female characters act like useless ornaments. They should get more space.This movie is full of contrasts, trends and styles. A few steps from perfection.

What kind of town is Tombstone? In quintessential western fashion it is the type of town where a stranger can walk in and find himself in trouble almost immediately. Those who live there tell each and every hotshot to get out of town before it is too late. It is framed by those endless plains and iconic mountains - so easy to forget it was Ford himself that made Monument Valley the first image to come to mind when you think western. Although Wyatt Earp might be forgiven for not thinking of the town's name and how it claims to have the largest cemetery around, it quickly becomes a personal affair. Fonda is riveting as the wiry cowboy who is thrust into the role of sheriff; there's a kind of reversal that is the opposite of what is expected with his characterisation. Entering the film he is full of silent anger and authority that he seizes to right the wrongs of Tombstone. The ex-marshal's every word is only slightly guarded and we sense that the death of his brothers may have unhinged him. When we try to find a moral centre within, Ford casts a dark, pitiless shadow on his face at the turning point of the narrative, as though he is uncertain whether his personal and romantic feelings will become unnecessarily involved and lead to further jeopardy. It isn't until he has spared Clanton that he is renewed - not with love, as Ford so wisely signals with the final handshake, but with a inner peace and closure only gained once the church has begun to be raised and Tombstone is no longer the hellish breeding ground for the scum he has dispatched. Oh, but how great is Fonda at the church dance, where he tells a whole story with just his body language; the way he fidgets and glances nervously again and again at Clementine's hands. Opposite him is Doc Holliday, whom is spoken of much earlier than he first appears, so we are apprehensive of the man who runs the town but whom is not the mayor. And in that tense confrontation in the bar, we feel that he is primed to oppose Fonda as the main villain, if not in his murmured threats then in the dark colour of his attire, but no such thing occurs. He is a man who has become accustomed to the west, even rules a little part of it - but not comfortably, and certainly not aligned with his nature. Medical certificates and honours line his walls as the last remnants of that former life, something he is increasingly running away from. Have we ever seen a love triangle (or even quadrangle) so buffeted by the wildness and lawlessness of the west? Clementine puts aside her grievances to assist in the surgery, Holliday is thrust back into the world he fled, a shadowy Wyatt lurks and looks on, and Ford doesn't need to show the procedure or the outcome; just the frozen, nervous portraits of the town inhabitants silhouetted in the bar, and shrieks echoing from beyond. Joseph MacDonald's day for night photography has a sinister mood about it that just could not be captured in technicolour. The early action has the rogue gunslinger drunken and shooting up the place, and the light leaks out of the salon just as he poses in the doorway; it's a stunning, otherworldly silhouette. See how wisps of smoke will drift across the interiors of the saloon, obscuring the truer and less than noble intentions of some of its regulars. And those evocative extreme wide shots that make the town buildings and the mountains jutting up from the ground in the distance seem tiny in comparison - and how it makes the thin framework of the church bell tower seem tall and magnificent in return. It marks a new age. There is something for everyone in My Darling Clementine. The action is quick and ruthless, without a hint of any intention of drawing it out beyond what it is worth. There's humour in the way Wyatt gets no real answers everywhere he turns, so that the change must come from himself, and how the thespian signs away a hotel bill with a flourish, and how the barber's new 'modern' chair is like lowering yourself into a death-trap. And there is simple, sweet romance, that evolves and devolves naturally according to the circumstances, instead of the other way around. Wyatt betrays his heart as he leaves a renewed Tombstone - he glances once up at the hotel window where darling Clementine resides, and then again.

. . . almost manages to bamboozle movie-goers that Evil is Good in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. And this is without so much as a cameo appearance by Ford's personal Frankenstein Monster, John Wayne. Unlike Wayne's nemesis director, Frank Capra of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Ford's vision of the America he's promoting is more aptly titled IT'S A FASCIST'S PARADISE. Therefore, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE predicates ALL of its events upon the opening 1882 murder of poor Jimmy Earp, at the tender age of 18, by Evil Pops Clanton (Walter Brennan). Trouble is, as Western historian Andrew C. Isenberg documents in the definitive Criterion CLEMENTINE, James Earp was Wyatt's OLDER brother, and this Jimmy expired superannuated in 1926! The Earps were NOT cattlemen, either, as Ford would have it, and only dabbled occasionally in "law enforcement" TO PROTECT THE E^RP FAMILY PROSTITUTION AND CARD-CHEATING BUSINESSES. Like one of today's Chicago cops, it was Wyatt Earp himself who EXECUTED unarmed business rivals as a crooked "lawman." Anyone acquainted with the rest of John Ford's films (or even the Wayne flicks directed by someone else) is familiar with the pattern this mendacious pair of so-called "Hollywood Icons" used in doing their Devil's Work to tear down American Core Values and our Constitution. They were the Fox "News" of the 1900s: Unfair and Unbalanced. Though Wayne somehow missed 20th Century Fox's CLEMENTINE, one of Ford and Wayne's main henchmen--Ward Bond--plays a key Earp role here. Naturally.

***User reviewer Lechuguilla ("Shakespeare In Tombstone", Lechuguilla from Dallas, Texas, 25 April 2006) provides nice description of the imagery. Righty-Sock ("An archetypal Western mood piece!", Righty-Sock from Mexico, 10 August 2001) has a nice summary and offers insight on the casting. Meanwhile, Whythorne ("Extremely overrated, silly and historically bogus melodrama", Whythorne from United States, 26 March 2010); gkbazalo ("Good Henry Fonda Western but misses the facts by a mile", gkbazalo from Scottsdale, AZ, 3 June 2004); Romanus Nies ("Ignorant or artistic?", Romanus Nies from Germany, 20 April 2008); bkoganbing ("When You Pull A Gun, Kill A Man", bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York, 3 October 2006) and tieman64 ("Scented Desert Flowers", tieman64 from United Kingdom, 23 September 2013) all take issue with the historical deviations from fact, making many interesting points along the way.***"My Darling Clementine" (1946) is widely regarded as John Ford's best film and should be regarded as one of the greatest Westerns ever. Although John Ford personally knew Wyatt Earp (when Ford was a prop boy and the elderly Earp would visit Hollywood sets), this film is not a history lesson. There are probably an uncountable number of liberties taken from the famous 1881 gunfight (which lasted about 30 seconds). Instead, it is a romanticized and stylized tale with many points of interest.The central conflict between the Earps and the Clantons (note: there are no McLaurys here) is very clearly a good family unit removing a bad family unit. (Or as we say now, "taking out the trash.") However, the greatness in "Clementine" stems from character additions to the historical event. One is the mixed-race (i.e., at least half Native American), singing saloon girl Chihuahua (Linda Darnell) who is Doc Holliday's most recent love interest. In addition, a drunken, swindling, English thespian and fop (Alan Mowbray) arrives to Tombstone to entertain the rowdy cowboys by reciting Shakespeare. The thespian is very unique in the John Ford catalogue, as Ford usually completes his cast with very rugged men and very family-oriented women. The thespian's appearance leads to an important early scene between the vile Clantons and the film's obvious hero Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda). Perhaps the only historical detail that this film faithfully renders is the depiction of a Wyatt Earp who fears no other man. (All historical accounts say this about Wyatt.) Henry Fonda is a convincing badass and western lawman.The most fascinating addition to the history is the perpetually inconsistent Doc Holliday. The tubucular, misanthropic physician is quite ornery when he is guzzling whiskey, which is always. (Holliday also finds each whiskey glass he employs so disappointing that he usually throws it. One wonders how much he costs the drinking establishment to resupply all of the glasses he destroys.) The washed-up former gunslinger has a chip on his shoulder and continues to threaten Wyatt until their eventual duel. As such, Holliday alternates between being a substitute antagonist to being a friend of Wyatt. With such a complicated role, Victor Mature's performance is bound to be polarizing. I love Mature's work here; he speaks almost all his lines as if he's suffered unendurable pain during his life. It surprises me that so many people prefer more recent depictions of Doc Holliday. By the way, Holliday's back-and-forth character might explain the opening credits, as the camera very mechanically repeats a move down, to the left and to the right revealing title cards. Holliday is loved by two beautiful women (Chihuahua and Cathy Downs as Clementine Carter) but rejects them both. In contrast, man-of-action Wyatt is painfully shy with Clementine. Ford has an interesting visual pattern with the scenes between Clementine and Wyatt. Wyatt is often framed by whatever verticals are handy (e.g., doorways and building pillars) when Clementine is also on the screen. The last shot reverses this trend. Ford appears to be emphasizing separation within the Wyatt-Clementine relationship as part of his storytelling repertoire.The production qualities are excellent. Ford serves up many gorgeous Black and White images; sometimes it seems as if the clouds are knowingly participating. Ford pushes the edge by having several night scenes with more darkness than we normally see in a western. The voices are always interesting to listen to, particularly when the inimitable Walter Brennan's Old Man Clanton is speaking. (Surprising fact: this is the only film where Brennan and Ford worked together. The Golden Era King of Westerns and one of the greatest Western character actors didn't get along.)Every Ford Western introduces two qualities which I don't admire: Racism and animal cruelty. "Clementine" is no exception. When civilian Wyatt emerges from a paralyzed crowd to disarm a drunken Indian (a story based on the real Wyatt's life), the Indian is dragged to the street, kicked and humiliated. When Wyatt intones that it is wrong to offer liquor to Indians it is a very hateful moment. Also, horses are violently forced to the ground several times.Despite the negatives, "My Darling Clementine" is a very satisfying Western which looks great and where all of the characters are interesting. Cinephiles need to saddle up and (gently) ride their best mare over to the revival theater that is showing it.