150 Word Review: 'My Darling Clementine' (1946)
Tombstone, AZ
One of America’s favorite myths is the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where reluctant lawman Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and friend Doc Holliday confronted a gang of outlaws. This shootout has been immortalized on the big screen multiple times, and director John Ford’s My Darling Clementine is one of the best.
Victor Mature is a little too hale and hearty to play tubercular gambler Holliday, but he has such sad eyes. Henry Fonda is lanky and handsome. Unlike other leading men back then, Fonda has a dangerous twinkle in his eye.
Linda Darnell is spicy as Chihuahua, a saloon girl with terrible taste in cowboys. The most important part of this myth is the bromance between Earp and Holliday, and Mature and Fonda have genuine chemistry. Ford casts his beloved Monument Valley as Tombstone, and even in black and white, the massive buttes on the horizon loom like old gods.