Our interpretation of the Old West and American expansion during the 19th century was visualized byJohn Ford, a poet with a film camera. The legendary director influenced your favorite directors working today and national iconography with his painterly images of Western vistas and the classic American family. The ultimate paradoxical filmmaker, Fordcarried himself with a prickly, gruff attitude, and he treated filmmaking as menial labor despite being one of the most picturesque and sentimental artists of the 20th century.Ford’s films both propagated legends and deconstructed Western myths–many times in the same movie.As a young man breaking into the primal era of Hollywood, Ford metWyatt Earp, a real-life Western figure who supplied theMy Darling Clementinedirector with a real-life account of theGunfight at O.K. Corral.Although Earp is a first-hand source, his celebrity status is based on hazy legend-making.
John Ford Dramatized Wyatt Earp in Tombstone in ‘My Darling Clementine’
Of hisprolific filmography filled with numerous classics,My Darling Clementineis the quintessential John Ford film. Equally romantic and sobering as a character drama and Western, the 1946 film is a dramatized account of Wyatt Earp’s (Henry Fonda) tenure as the town Marshall of Tombstone after his youngest brother is killed by a band of outlaws, the Clantons. Wyatt accepts this responsibility to protect this lawless town, but his motivation is born out of vengeance. It’s a film that could’ve only arisen out of someone who recently served in World War II like Ford,as the director grapples with a man’s innate duty to answer the call for justice in a period and setting of disorder, as thefilm is clouded in darkness and impending doom.Wyatt is also entangled in a messy love triangle between the dispirited master-of-all-tradesDoc Holliday(Victor Mature), his new lover Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), and former lover Clementine (Cathy Downs).
A fact that seems too fantastical to be true, Wyatt Earp lived long enough to see his tales captured on the big screen. Upon moving to Los Angeles late in life, Earp spent his days on Hollywood sets as anunofficial consultant on Westerns. Until he died in 1929, Earp,according toJoseph McBride’s biography,Searching for John Ford,“was often seen around movie sets in the silent era, reminiscing with the old cronies and hoping to interest moviemakers in telling his story.“It’s unclear what his exact motives were, but considering that his time in Tombstone, capped off by the legendary Gunfight at O.K. Corral where Earp and Holliday defeated the Clanton gang, has beenportrayed across countless movies, including the eponymousWyatt EarpandTombstone, the former sheriff’s influence spread quickly around Hollywood.
Wyatt Earp Influenced Ford’s Direction of the O.K. Corral Shootout in ‘My Darling Clementine’
During his Hollywood stay, Earp encountered John Ford when he was just a “prop boy” trying to follow his brotherFrancis Ford’s footsteps in show business. Ford recalled speaking with the legendary figure (whose legend was cemented posthumously) a handful of times.“I used to give him a chair and a cup of coffee,“the notoriously reticent director said. According to Ford, the two exchanged more than just pleasantries. In asit-down with Henry Fonda andJimmy Stewart, Ford claimed thatEarp vividly described the layout and sequence of events at the famous O.K. Corral shootout.“He drew it out on paper–a sketch of [the battle],' the director recalled. Decades later, whenFord was the directorof Earp’s story inMy Darling Clementine,he used the law officer’s detailed description as a template to construct the battle in the film.
While this story is undoubtedly riveting and a testament to Ford’s magic touch as a director, it should be taken with a grain of salt, as theGrapes of Wrathdirector was a notorious liar, one who habitually madecontradictory statements.Olive Carey, wife ofFord’s friendHarry Carey,rejected any plausibility surrounding Ford’s first-hand account of O.K. Corralin Ford’s biography. “He’s full of crap.God, how he romanced!” Carey remarked. His cryptic nature makes him an endlessly fascinating subject of film criticism, especially since his films are about America’s prevailing myths. As McBride wrote, “Perhaps it was Earp that Ford learned what it meant to ‘print the legend,'” the famous closing line ofThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
As a filmmaker who preferred not to valorize filmmaking as an art form,it would be typical behavior for John Ford to downplay his impeccable feat of direction in the O.K. Corral shootout inMy Darling Clementine. According to Ford’s testimony, he wasn’tcreating vibrant and expressionist art, but rather, he was only visualizing Wyatt Earp’s own account of the incident. Regardless, this collision of dramatization and real life is the gripping dynamic responsible for the everlasting power of Ford’s films as historical and cultural objects.
My Darling Clementineis available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.
