The story of Wyatt Earp and the town of Tombstone has been told in films countless times, since the beginning of the medium. Perhaps it has probably never been told as well as it was by John Ford’s 1946 film, My Darling Clementine starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt. The film is a moody, atmospheric masterpiece but still has a few flaws. It feels like a film paying tribute to the death of the Western, even though it was made at the height of the genre’s popularity.
Right after the credits end, the audience is immediately thrown a wide shot of the Earp brothers and their cattle in front of Monument Valley and its beauty. The audience is also given the heavy contrast between lights and darks that run throughout the whole film, giving it a rough, documentary look. High Noon (1951) is often credited as being the first Western to have this bleak look, but Ford, ever the innovator, beat that by a few years. The wide shots in this film show that widescreen format is not necessary to give the audience beautiful shots. All you need is a well composed square image to get some of the best views of the West.
Of course, if the cinematography was the only good thing about this film, it wouldn’t be a masterpiece. Henry Fonda is great as Wyatt, and thankfully the usually dull Victor Mature is able to rise to the challenge as Doc Holliday. Wyatt is a dark character, much darker that Fonda’s usual roles, but he brings a scruffy, elegant swagger that it almost looks like a preview to his role in Once Upon A Time In The West 23 years later.
However, there is a weak link in the acting: Linda Darnell as Chihuahua. This was a studio film, so if Fox head Daryl F. Zanuk wanted Darnell in the film, there was almost nothing Ford could do to stop him. She is decent, but she looks like she comes from a different school of acting than Fonda or Mature. She’s over dramatic and her best part may actually be when she’s lying on Holliday’s operating table, about to die.
Another great performance is Walter Brennan as Clanton, the villain. Brennan is in just about every major Western ever made, but usually played the friendly old coot (like in Red River [1948] or Rio Bravo [1959]) and very rarely played a villain or a character as dark as he does in this film. The scene where he whips his sons and says “When you pull a gun, kill a man!” is probably one of the darkest moments in a Ford film (tied with Lee Marvin’s beating of the newspaper editor in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance [1962]).
Even though it is full of great performances, there are still some clunky moments, particularly Fonda’s scene at his brother’s grave and the cornball happy ending. Neither of those things were very much Ford’s fault, as Zanuck seemed to throw in the grave scene because one just like it worked so well in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and, even in 1946, audiences didn’t like an ending where there wasn’t some romantic relationship implied.
Nevertheless, My Darling Clementine is an essential Western and a key part of Ford’s career. While the three Calvary films with John Wayne (Fort Apache [1948], She Wore A Yellow Ribbon [1949] and Rio Grande [1950]) that followed were decent, it’s about the only great Western Ford made after Stagecoach (1939) until The Searchers in 1956. It’s not quite up to the level as either of those films, but it is still one of the finest Westerns ever made.