Product Details

• Actors: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Cathy Downs, Walter Brennan
• Directors: John Ford
• Writers: Samuel G. Engel, Sam Hellman, Stuart N. Lake, Winston Miller
• Producers: Samuel G. Engel
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: May 4, 1999
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301798759
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,641 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The most famous and sublime treatment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Ford's My Darling Clementine is by any measure one of the most classically perfect Westerns ever made. Henry Fonda plays a hard, serious Wyatt Earp leading a cattle drive west with his brothers when a stopover in the wild town of Tombstone ends in the murder of his youngest brother. Wyatt takes up the badge he had turned down earlier and tames the wide-open town with his brothers (Ward Bond and Tim Holt), all the while waiting for the wild Clantons (led by Walter Brennan's ruthless Old Man Clanton) to make a mistake. Victor Mature delivers perhaps his finest performance as the tubercular gambler Doc Holliday, an alcoholic Eastern doctor escaping civilization in the Wild West. Ford takes great liberties with history, bending the story to fit his ideal of the West, a balance of social law and pioneer spirit. Though the film reaches its climax in the legendary gunfight between the Earps (with Doc Holliday) and the Clantons, the most powerful moment is the moving Sunday morning church social played out on the floor of the unfinished church. As Earp dances with Clementine (Cathy Downs)--Fonda's stiff, self-conscious movements showing a man unaccustomed to such social interaction--Ford's camera frames them against the open sky: the town and the wilderness merge into the new Eden of the West for a brief moment. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Ford's Poetic View of the West, February 9, 2000

By 

Benjamin J Burgraff (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: My Darling Clementine [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If you're looking for a straight-forward, factual presentation of the events leading up to the 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral', please buy 'Wyatt Earp', or 'Tombstone' from Amazon.com...But if you prefer your history more spiritual, and want to see a master storyteller paint a visual canvas of a West that may never have existed, but SHOULD have, then this film will be a treasured part of your video collection!

John Ford knew Wyatt Earp, personally, and was familiar with the events surrounding the Tombstone shootout, but one of his greatest assets as a director was his ability to look beyond simple facts, and focus on legend. 'My Darling Clementine' is a story of icons, of the Loner, battling his own weaknesses, and creating something lasting, then walking away, to allow Civilization to grow. It's a classic theme in Ford's work (he would return to it in 'The Searchers', and 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'), as well as in many other directors' westerns ('Shane', 'A Fistful of Dollars', 'The Wild Bunch').

While Wyatt Earp (wonderfully portrayed by Henry Fonda) is surrounded by his brothers in the film, he has an aloofness that makes his character both complex, and enigmatic at the same time. At the film's start, he's a cowpuncher, who had walked away from the responsibilities of being a lawman, finding satisfaction in the hard work and solitary life of the range. When the Clantons (led by Walter Brennan, in one of his greatest roles), first approach the brothers, while Wyatt accepts an invitation to get a taste of city life, it's clear that it will be a brief stay, before he moves on, and he brushes aside any overtures of friendship.

His lack of desire to commit to a larger community is stressed after he barehandedly captures a drunken Indian (based on an actual event in Earp's life), then turns down the Marshal's badge. Only after a brother is murdered do the Earp brothers agree to help clean up the town.

In counterpoint to Earp is Doc Holliday (sensitively portrayed by Victor Mature), an intellectual who fled the South, and had found his own solitude by virtue of his guns, his gambling, and his illness. While Earp is a true 'Man of the West', however, Holliday is a fish out of water, truly comfortable only in a crowded bar. He is doomed, more by his own shrinking world, than by the disease that forces him to cough into his handkerchief.

The scenes of Earp in the town are wonderful, as Civilization builds around an uncomfortable stranger. Yet Earp toys with the idea of settling into this world, through his politely formal relationship with Doc's lost love, Clementine. The scene at the church dance, where the stiffy formal Earp dances against the vista of a West being 'boarded in' is symbolic of what his own life was becoming, and is classic Ford!

The climactic shootout is powerful and raw, ultimately freeing Earp from the constraints of a life that would have been unnatural for him, and ending the downward spiral of Holliday's life, in an heroic gesture.

It's often asked why Earp leaves, afterwards, when Clementine and the Tombstone are so attractive...The answer is simple, really; his work is finished, and their future will be constrained into a world of wood and 'progress'. The Loner, the 'Man of the West' would have no place there. Like Ethan, or Shane, he must return to the solitary vistas that are his true home.

What a story! What a film!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Paced Western, April 1, 2004

By 

S. Doyle (Dublin 6, Ireland Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Darling Clementine (DVD)

I have always put"My Darling Clementine" in my top-ten westerns as do some critics,and after viewing it recently on the excellent DVD version I am considering it to be the best! The alternative version on the disc might not be to everyones taste but westerns should be slow paced(check out the excellent "Open Range")not just shoot-ups added for padding every 20 minutes or so. One of the best scenes in this movie or any other western is the excellent dance scene,especially the moment when Henry Fonda asks Kathy Downes to dance. Definetely Ford at his best and Victor Mature,s best hour as well. Kudos to all for a well produced DVD package

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare in Tombstone, June 7, 2004

By 

M. Dog (Everywhere and Nowhere) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: My Darling Clementine (DVD)

Of the many movies that I love and own, this is one of the DVDs I would grab if the house was on fire.

My Darling Clementine is fundamentally about the shootout at the OK Corral, arguably the most famous 30 seconds in American history. But in John Ford's loving hands, the story takes its time getting there and, in the process, becomes as graceful and easily beautiful a piece of film-making as you will ever see.

In this age when movie goers prize realism, sheer violence, and de-mythology, Ford has become something of a whipping boy for those who point out the glaring historical inaccuracies present in Hollywood's traditional portrayal of the American West. These folks miss the larger picture and are the poorer for their narrow, fashionable view. In this archetypal story of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, and the Clanton family, Ford was not interested in historical detail. He was creating legends, not historical accounts for the archives.

Ford was a film maker. When a movie lover approaches a Ford film, it becomes necessary to give oneself over to the power of film. Once one does that, tremendous pleasures await. Such as: the townspeople of Tombstone having a dance around the skeletal frame of a half-built church while the huge, flat buttes of Monument Valley tower in the background; or Henry Fonda as Earp watching with great sympathy as Victor Mature (Doc Holiday) recites Hamlet's suicide soliloquy in a barroom (as hokey as this sounds, it is Fonda's expression that will move you, I guarantee).

Other images worth mentioning: Fonda/Earp walking alone through the rain of Tombstone at night; or the final shot of Clementine (meaningless in the film other than as a perfect symbol of all the things men love but can never have) standing framed against the Arizona sky and a picket fence - or the way Walter Brennan as Old Man Clanton, flashes through his scenes like a rattler's hiss.

Loving a John Ford Western is a bit like believing in a religion: it requires a leap of faith - a belief in something that might not be tangible reality, but is instead an ideal no less worthy of love.

This DVD is an absolute must for Ford fans, Western fans, or movie lovers. As an extra bonus, the special feature commentary by Ford biographer, Scott Eyman, is absolutely superb. Mr. Eyman's concise and rich commentary is nearly as enjoyable as the film itself. All in all, a real treasure for John Ford fans. -Mykal Banta