Gunfight at OK Corral

"My Darling Clementine" is John Ford's fictionalized account of events leading up to and including the Gunfight at the OK Corral, where Wyatt Earp and company faced the Clanton gang in the Old West's most famous gunbattle.

Starring black-jowled Henry Fonda as an unlikely Wyatt Earp, complete with 10 gallon hat and enough trail dust to choke a buffalo, "My Darling Clementine" has a most enviable cast, including Walter Brennan, Victor Mature, Ward Bond, Linda Darnell, and John Ireland.

Even though Ford took poetic license with the story line of what is still actually remembered about the gunfight at OK Corral, My Darling Clementine is still a significant movie and should be viewed by all cinema fans, it is that good.

The film is notable for miscasting characters and somehow making it work:
Victor Mature is a fat and sassy Doc Holliday; Walter Brennan is a leering, backshooting Old Man Clanton (invented by Ford); Linda Darnell is a Mexican bar girl. Clementine? Why she's the schoolmarm. Why Ford used this bit character as the focus of the story, I'm sure we will never know!
TIP: Do not miss gawky Wyatt Earp's dance with Miss Clementine at the church social! You will be rolling on the floor laughing.

The cinematography has to be seen to be believed. Picture Monument Valley filmed with a big sky, in stark black and white. Picture desperate night riding by horses at full gallop. Picture a gunfight where Wyatt Earp beats Doc Holliday to the draw, shooting the gun out of his hand!!

The Gunfight actually unwinds probably closer than most other versions have depicted it: the participants actually dive down for cover and shoot and maneuver more like real people would than the typical stand up and shoot it out we usually see.

"My Darling Clementine" is a black and white movie that virtually defines the genre. In a time when color film was the norm, Ford forcefully used black and white, as he also did in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance", "The Grapes of Wrath", and others did in "They Died With Their Boots On", and "The Hustler".

This movie has been shown in restored condition on AMC recently. See it!