flasuss Review of My Darling Clementine

My Darling Clementine (1946)

A story that everybody knows... told in a way nobody ever told

[10/10 · 27 August 2005]

My Darling Clementine, for those who haven't seen it, may seem just another version of the life of Wyatt Earp, arguably the most famous legend of the West. But the approach of maverick filmmaker John Ford is unique: Doc Holliday is shown as a tormented man, both in mind and soul, and Earp is not a hero fighting the evil, but a honest man doing the job he is paid for- and Ford done the right thing calling not the movie-star-like John Wayne, but the more "fellow next door" Henry Fonda, which gives one of his best, if not the best, performances ever. The lives of both are changed when Clementine arrives: she is very polite, cultured, and sweet as possible, like a vision of another world, and in a certain way, is indeed, because she symbolizes civilization. And what the real subject of the film is (not unlike The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), is the beginning of civilization and the end of the anarchy of the then Wild West. Both in style and substance, this is quintessential Ford, and although he made several masterpieces, it certainly ranks among my the very best, and one of the best pictures ever made.