My Darling Clementine
John Ford was a natural storyteller and filmmaker, which has become clear as I’ve started to dig in to more of his work over the years. He’s also the most iconic director of Westerns in movie history, and a big part of that is because he’s interested in the morality of people making choices for personal survival, which was essential in the Old West, and during westward expansion. I think he’s done better films overall, but his adaptation of the story of Wyatt Earp, “My Darling Clementine,” is probably the best film he’s done on this central idea.
The film begins with Wyatt Earp (played by Henry Fonda, Ford’s star in “The Grapes of Wrath”) and his brothers going into the town of Tombstone for a haircut, while leaving the cattle they are taking east to Kansas with their youngest brother, James. Wyatt has barely had the shaving cream put on his face before guns go off, and the former Marshall goes to take care of the disturbance. They try and recruit him to be the town’s new marshal, which he refuses, at first, but when they return to find their cattle taken, and James killed, the lawman returns, and he finds life in Tombstone complicated by the questionable morality of the people instead.
The thing about “My Darling Clementine” that stands out to you as you watch it is that it’s not so much about the actions that Earp did like his famous shootout at the OK Corral (most known for my generation in the 1993 Western, “Tombstone”), but the way Ford and his screenwriters center their attention on life in the town of Tombstone. His motivations for staying in Tombstone may be personal, but the more he gets to know the town, the more he sees that he can do good for more than just his own sense of justice. When he comes to know Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), a professional gambler who runs Tombstone in his own way, we get to see him use some of the lawless individuals of the town as a way of getting to the real root of criminality- whether it’s crime films of westerns, this is an old trope, but one that Ford milks the way others have done in their telling of Earp and Holliday’s story. Mature is not as brilliantly original in the role as Val Kilmer was in “Tombstone,” but the way he and Fonda bounce off of one another is part of what drives the film as it builds to its climax, which does involve the shootout, but is more about the interpersonal relationships Ford has shown us build along the way. That’s a big part of why this is so great to watch- it doesn’t follow a lot of the rules modern viewers expect from westerns, and it is better for it.
I’ve now talked a bit about the movie, but I haven’t really explained the title. The title is rooted in the character of Clementine (Cathy Downs), a women who rides into Tombstone one day looking for a “Dr. John Holliday.” She will become a lover of Earp’s throughout the film, but when she first enters the town, she is a key part of Holliday’s story, although they do not continue the courtship that began long before he was introduced in this film. Clementine represents something to both men- hope for a normal life, away from violent actions, for Earp, and a life long forgotten, replaced now with shady morality and love with prostitutes (like Chihuahua, played by Linda Darnell), for Doc- and she is indicative of Ford’s romantic, personal approach to the material in this film. She represents something powerful to both men- a chance for a regular life- that neither will quite be able to attain, because they both understand the way the west works. There is not much room for a woman like Clementine in lives of violence. Ironically, that’s why Earp is drawn to her, and Holliday moved away from her. Earp still holds out hope for that life, and seeing the ways he tries to live it is one of the great pleasures of John Ford’s film.
