OK Go

My Darling Clementine (1946) is a great western, a great John Ford film, heck a great movie generally. It’s got some real racist clangers though.

Henry Fonda is Wyatt Earp, driving a herd of cattle to California with his brothers. He meets up with Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan) who tries to buy the herd, then suggests they go into Tombstone, over yonder. They leave their youngest brother to watch and head into town for a shave and maybe a drink.

The fussy barber doesn’t get much done when bullets start flying. A drunken Indian is shutting up a saloon, and the Marshall retires rather than try to arrest him. So Earp takes him out and gets offered the job. He turns it down and heads back to the cattle.

But when he gets there, the cattle are gone and his brother has been killed. Now he will take that badge, make the other brothers deputies, and stick around long enough to bring the killers to justice.

Of course, he locks horns with the big gambler in town, Doc Holliday (Victor Mature). Holliday has a spicy Mexican girlfriend, Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), but his hometown honey, Clementine (Cathy Downs) shows up as well. She’s a genteel type, and Doc doesn’t want her dragged down to his level. It kind of looks like she might be more of Earp’s type. But first, they have to find out who killed the youngest Earp, and probably have a shoot out. Maybe at some kind of corral.

Let’s get the drunken Indian and Mexican spitfire ladyfriend out of the way. You’ve just got to note it and move on. Like John Wayne, Ford was a mix of racist and not so racist. For example, he shot the movie in Monument Valley partly for the look, partly to put a little money in the local Navajo economy.

Of course, it’s weird seeing Tombstone in Monument Valley, but I suppose geography wasn’t so advanced in 1948. It does look great though. Also looking great are all the actors, with plentiful close ups or two shots, often from below, as if looking up from belt level. I guess I should make a small exception for Henry Fonda, who gets his haircut, shave and spritz of cologne at last. He looks kind of silly, and I think it’s intentional because of a running joke - someone will start rhapsodizing about the beauties of the West, and how you can smell the cactus flowers, and Fonda interrupts, “That’s me. The barber...”