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Whenever I’m asked to recommend a John Ford western to someone who has never seen one I do not suggest My Darling Clementine (1946). Not because it isn’t a great film (it is) but it because it’s an outlier, so different from his other great westerns. It’s austere, almost ...
... spare. With almost no scoring at all, it’s eerily quiet most of the time with just an occasional song and economical dialogue. No long speeches, practically no sentiment at all. Quite a contrast with She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and worlds away from the treacly Quiet Man ...
... it’s a Grant Wood in black and white. Even the climactic gun fight is quieter than usual. The film haunts me and burrows into my soul every time I see it. Part of that is due to the magnificent performance of Victor Mature as Doc Holliday. On any list of the most ...
... underrated of the classic film actors is his name. I’ll admit it took me awhile to realize it. I grew up on The Robe and Samson and I hated those films. Later I saw Mature in noir, crime films, westerns and realized how good he could be. He’s at home there. At first ...
... he seems physically wrong for the part but, slowly, you see him transform himself so that he actually appears smaller. It’s rather amazing actually. Henry Fonda is Wyatt Earp and he is never better than when working for Ford. That long silent walk to the OK is one of my ...
... favorite scenes in western film. Ford hated Linda Darnell - one of the most naturally beautiful women in film history - thinking her miscast. I think she works here. It’s pretty much a thankless role but she gets a great death scene where she looks every bit the angel ...
... no wonder just 3 years earlier she was the Virgin Mary in Song of Bernadette. Cathy Downs is wonderfully stoic and reserved as the title character. It should have led to more but it didn’t. Alan Mowbray is excellent in the small role of the traveling Shakespearean actor ...
... and the most moving scene in the film is Mature finishing his Hamlet monologue. Which leaves us Walter Brennan. I have a love/hate relationship with him. So much of the time he’s so hammy doing that Gabby Hayes voice that it drives me to distraction. Not here. He should ...
... played villains all the time. He’s chlling as Old Man Clanton. This, to me, is where you see him as a great actor. There are many other small roles and performances here - all superb ...
... there is the great set piece dance at the unfinished church ...
... and many other things to talk about but I’ll let you discover them. Ford was American film’s Shakespeare, telling our history or our history as we liked to think of it. The one truly sweet moment in the film is Fonda’s kiss at the end but this isn’t Ford. Darryl Zanuck ...
... filmed it without Ford’s knowledge who felt it wrecked his vision of the film. I see his point but, in this case, the producer’s instincts were probably correct. This bleak film needed to end on that grace note with that tender feeling. It may have been against Ford’s ...
... artistic vision but it gave the audience a moment it needed. This was Ford’s first western since Stagecoach (1939) and his first film since WW2 ended. I like to think the quiet reserve of this masterpiece reflects Ford’s wartime experiences ...
... he would never again make a western like this one. It’s one of his greatest films and one I can’t recommend highly enough. It raises western film to an art form worthy of the highest praise. 
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