For a long ways into My Darling Clementine, I was a little disappointed. This was supposed to be one of the best works from a director whom I have come to love quite dearly, and I was growing a bit bored. I mean, I was finding it good, but nowhere near the level of some of Ford's other films. But as the film progressed, it drew me further and further into it, until it was almost as if I were experiencing the events and emotions of the film myself, as if I were not watching it on a television screen. How often does that happen? Maybe only a handful of all films have that power.
I'll tell you what My Darling Clementine has that even Ford's other masterpieces don't: slow build. There is a sort of an action sequence nearer the beginning where Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) vanquishes a psychopathic Indian with a hair trigger finger, but the action is done offscreen (this scene obviously inspired Akira Kurosawa to create the cognate scene in The Seven Samurai where Takashi Shimura, the head of the seven samurai, defeats a madman at the beginning of that film). After that, there is one brief fight between Wyatt and the Clampetts, whom we always assume killed young James Earp at the movie's opening. After that, the tension rises as slowly as possible until the two climactic sequences, where the Clampetts are finally discovered as the guilty party and then call on the Earps and Doc Holiday to a shootout at the O.K. Corral. Both of those sequences can be counted among the very best, the most suspenseful and the most satisfying in the annals of film.
There's not too much I could really say about the film. It has an powerfully bittersweet tone that is all its own, but that must be experienced and cannot be described. The acting is very good. Henry Fonda gives one in a series of brilliant performances in John Ford's films. Victor Mature is amazing as Doc Holiday. Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the film is the squandering of Jane Darwell's immense talent, who was so good in Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, in which she played Fonda's mother, that she won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. Her appearance in this film is little more than a cameo, where I was constantly hoping that her character would become more important in the film. One more thing that I ought to praise highly about the film is the marvelous use of music. Most classic Hollywood films overuse their musical score, even John Ford's films. On this film, Ford really utilizes the absence of music. Almost any other film would have tried to enhance the suspense of the shootout by drowning it in score, but almost no music is used at this point. It triples the suspense. 10/10.
Oh, I've got to tell you my favorite unintentionally funny exchange of dialogue in the film:
Wyatt: Did ya ever fall in love, Mac? Mac (the bartender): Nooo, I'm just a bartender.
What?!?! That speaks kind of poorly for the life of a bartender!
I'll tell you what My Darling Clementine has that even Ford's other masterpieces don't: slow build. There is a sort of an action sequence nearer the beginning where Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) vanquishes a psychopathic Indian with a hair trigger finger, but the action is done offscreen (this scene obviously inspired Akira Kurosawa to create the cognate scene in The Seven Samurai where Takashi Shimura, the head of the seven samurai, defeats a madman at the beginning of that film). After that, there is one brief fight between Wyatt and the Clampetts, whom we always assume killed young James Earp at the movie's opening. After that, the tension rises as slowly as possible until the two climactic sequences, where the Clampetts are finally discovered as the guilty party and then call on the Earps and Doc Holiday to a shootout at the O.K. Corral. Both of those sequences can be counted among the very best, the most suspenseful and the most satisfying in the annals of film.
There's not too much I could really say about the film. It has an powerfully bittersweet tone that is all its own, but that must be experienced and cannot be described. The acting is very good. Henry Fonda gives one in a series of brilliant performances in John Ford's films. Victor Mature is amazing as Doc Holiday. Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the film is the squandering of Jane Darwell's immense talent, who was so good in Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, in which she played Fonda's mother, that she won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. Her appearance in this film is little more than a cameo, where I was constantly hoping that her character would become more important in the film. One more thing that I ought to praise highly about the film is the marvelous use of music. Most classic Hollywood films overuse their musical score, even John Ford's films. On this film, Ford really utilizes the absence of music. Almost any other film would have tried to enhance the suspense of the shootout by drowning it in score, but almost no music is used at this point. It triples the suspense. 10/10.
Oh, I've got to tell you my favorite unintentionally funny exchange of dialogue in the film:
Wyatt: Did ya ever fall in love, Mac? Mac (the bartender): Nooo, I'm just a bartender.
What?!?! That speaks kind of poorly for the life of a bartender!