My Darling Clementine Series: Lindsay Anderson: Revolutionary Romantic [Aug 15 - 21, 2008] Director: John Ford, Country: USA, Release: 1946, Runtime: 97
My Darling Clementine, one of the best movie westerns, is also the most entertaining and poetic film version of the Wyatt Earp legend. As Anderson wrote, “On paper it is just another western, but as it unfolds on the screen, with grace of movement, freshness of vision, it is found to possess a magic power to excite, to enchant, to revive. The story is given shape and meaning by an expressive camera, sympathetic music and design, skilled actors, and above all by creative direction—direction which gathers all these elements together and gives them unity and life.”
Clementine is also a western for people to whom Tombstone and Dodge City are historical references lacking sentimental value, in which character, wonderful dialogue and authentic drama prevail. The nuanced performances of Henry Fonda as the marshal and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday contribute as much to the excitement and suspense as the physical action, along with one of the most unforgettable moments in Ford’s filmmaking: Fonda’s touching stiff-legged dance with Clementine (the lovely Cathy Downs).
