Western #4: My Darling Clementine
Westerns are structurally built on concepts in a state of duality - hero/villain, nature/civilization, cowboy/Indian - and the classic western My Darling Clementine (1946) is an embodiment of the genre’s focus on the pairings of diametrically opposed forces. The film’s simple revenge plot is grounded by the cast of characters that provide those contrasts, as well as the overarching theme of transitioning from open space and lawlessness to structures and civilization. Based on the true story of the fight at the OK Corral and the historical figure of Wyatt Earp in the town of Tombstone, John Ford produced another film that is considered a masterpiece in his oeuvre and one that is frequently cited as a formal and fundamental blueprint for classical westerns. As we review the fourth film in the Western Marathon, that legacy is considered, along with examining the film’s thematic thrust of civilization into the wild west.
Tragedy strikes the Earp family, as their youngest brother is murdered and cattle stolen while the elder brothers visit the frontier town of Tombstone. In a quest for vengeance, Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) agrees to become the sheriff of the town, bringing order to a lawless town whilst investigating his brother’s death. Along the way, he meets Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), his girlfriend, a saloon-singing and emotionally crazed prostitute named Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), and also a woman from Doc’s past - a visitor from the East named Clementine (Cathy Downs). As Earp adjusts to life in the town, he finds himself drawn to Clementine’s refined spirit and the two share a dance during the town social in the shadow of the half-built church. Wyatt discovers the truth about his brother’s killing and his pursuit of vengeance finalizes in a showdown at the OK Corral with the Clanton family, an energetic shootout that leaves Earp victorious, but that also leaves Doc Holliday dead. His mission complete, Earp takes leave of Tombstone and of Clementine, who has chosen to stay and teach at the town’s school.
The most prominent theme strung across the entire film is the focus on the tension between nature and civilization. The film opens with shots that capture the beauty of the landscape as the cattle roams throughout the valley, with striking clouds in the background, identifying the open space as the place the Earp brothers feel most at home. When he makes the decision to transfer from a cattleman to a sheriff, Wyatt never seems wholly at ease within the confines of civilization, bristling at the barber's offer of perfume, showing discomfort in sipping refined champagne, and uncomfortably dancing at the town social (although he gives a gallant effort due to his admiration for Clementine). It is noteworthy that Ford didn’t cast his usual stalwart of John Wayne in the starring role - Wayne is far too rugged to be tempted by the town life, whereas Fonda gives an emotional performance as he buries his dead brother and eventually warms to the pleasures of the town, even as he keeps his eye on the goal of justice.
The fight at the OK Corral is another example of the tension between open space and structures. As Earp walks at a measured pace away from the town and toward the paddock, the camera frames him as a lone man amongst the open sky and open road, with the safety of buildings retreating behind him. Ford doesn’t waste much time on heroics, choosing to quickly resolve the shootout, almost signifying that the important battle has already been waged and civilization has won. Driving that theme forward is Earp’s decision to immediately leave town once his revenge has been exacted, feeling no obligation to continue as their sheriff, nor even determined to stay by Clementine’s civilized graces. While she is tempting, the wilderness calls, and he leaves conscious that civilization will not be denied, as evidenced by her staying to teach at the school.
The slow creep of civilization into the West is further evidenced by the arrivals from the East. Doc Holliday is a broken man that left Boston to live as a gambler in the wilderness, embrace a saloon prostitute, and spend his last days wasting away from his disease. However, he cannot fully escape his past life, as the traveling Shakespeare performer reminds him during his performance of a “poem;” as the actor falters, Holliday continues the Hamlet soliloquy in a rapturous state, before he is forcefully brought back to the present with a hacking cough triggered from his tuberculosis. His cultured past comes actively looking for him in the personification of Clementine, who arrives in Tombstone after searching for Doc across the West, and although he rejects her advances multiple times on a personal level, she ultimately stays to continue the work of spreading civilization to the western lands.
While the men of the film are both given complex emotions and engaging challenges to reckon with, the women are severely underwritten and give less than inspiring performances. Clementine enters the picture significantly into the running time; she is prim and proper, educated, chaste….and without much character motivation nor agency. She presumably took on a long and arduous journey to find her past lover, but wilts when rejected. She provides a temptation to Earp, but he also rejects her in favor of the cattle life. Her only active decision in the film is to stay in Tombstone to start a school, however the script doesn’t feel compelled to explain her actions, seemingly content for her to be a pawn in the overall theme of civilization settling the West.
The foil to modest Clementine is the wild, emotional, and unruly Mexican prostitute Chihuahua. Written as overly dramatic with a performance to match, the saloon singer is as annoying as she is exasperating. When she first meets Earp, after some terrible lip syncing action, they have a confrontation in the back of the saloon after she helped another man cheat Earp at poker; she slaps him, he throws her in a water trough, and the stakes are unnecessarily raised as the overdramatics tingle. Her relationship with Holliday is full of whining and jealous pouting - he has a better chemistry with Clementine with whom he has a genuine past, yet he continues to choose Chihuahua to keep him company in his last days. Their only truly genuine moment occurs as an injured Chihuahua emerges after surgery; her closeup is given the real star treatment with soft lighting and glamorous makeup, and their conversation and delivery show actual intimacy. Chihuahua is not destined to make it through the film however, as the theme demands that she must be sacrificed and die to give way and make space for civilization to establish in the town.
Overall, this film focuses on civilization coming into the western lands, thus providing the blueprint for the classical genre portrayal of Westerns. It has clear villains in the Clantons and true heroes in the Earps, it balances the cultured woman from the East with the wild Mexican prostitute in the West, and shows the inner struggle of one man tempted by civilization and the law, yet holding on to the wilderness that he calls home. While it’s portrayal of women is a fundamental flaw, and the landscape of the Monument Valley is not highlighted as much as to be expected in a Ford flick, the film is carried by the emotional performance of Henry Fonda (who also does some very impressive horse stunt work), the incredible set of the Tombstone town, and the occasional beats of humor scattered throughout the script.
Therefore, this film falls about middle of the pack in the ranking of the Western Marathon - and now we depart from Ford’s dynasty and settle in for a viewing of Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo.
