My Darling Clementine

Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) shoot it out with old man Clanton (Walter Brennan) and his sons at the O.K. Corral.

My Darling Clementine is a well-produced take on the classic old-west tale, marred by an uneven cast.

While Henry Fonda, Ward Bond, and Tim Holt are great as the Earp brothers, and Walter Brennan is equally well cast opposite them as old man Clanton (a role he would later semi-spoof in Support Your Local Sheriff), Victor Mature is far too wooden as the enigmatic Doc Holliday, and in the titular role, Cathy Downs has zero charisma with either Fonda or Mature, and second-billed Linda Darnell’s overacting and distinctly American accent cripple the credibility of every scene she’s in. It’s surprising that director John Ford, renowned for his sometimes harsh treatment of actors, let these sub-par performances slide.

That aside however, My Darling Clementine is an entertaining western, with a fast-paced script and excellent Monument Valley cinematography. The climatic shootout at the O.K. Corral holds up well even today, and is, according to Ford, fairly historically accurate. A few cast changes and this could have been a western classic on par with Ford’s earlier Stagecoach.