| ||||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Special Features
- Includes theatrical version and alternate pre-release version
- Behind-the-scenes featurette about alternate version
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Customer Reviews
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.
... Read more ›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).
... Read more ›This has a terrific cast, from Henry Fonda playing Wyatt Earp to Walter Brennan as the father of the Clanton clan. One of the central themes is the relationship between Doc Holiday (Victor Mature) and Wyatt Earp. Doc is a troubled character haunted by demons of some sort and sick. Brennan is fantastic and plays his role as an evil patriarch to the hilt.
There is a corollary love interest theme that slows the story down a bit, but these moments contain some of the most beautifully shot scenes as well.
This is a wonderful film that shows John Ford at his finest.
About the Gunfight at OK corral.
Excellent actors all the way around. Read more
