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From: dday@gymble.UUCP (Dennis Doubleday)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: GUNFIGHT AT OK CORRAL/MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
Message-ID: <430@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 10:34:05 EST
Article-I.D.: gymble.430
Posted: Mon Nov  4 10:34:05 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 09:25:50 EST
References: <1366@mtgzz.UUCP>
Reply-To: dday@gymble.UUCP (Dennis Doubleday)
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 47

In article <1366@mtgzz.UUCP> leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) writes:
>     I saw some place a documentary in which John Ford claimed that his
>version of the gunfight in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE was accurate.  I was
>anxious to see John Ford's film, and by coincidence, it showed up on TV the
>following week.
>     John Ford is one of the great American filmmakers.  Ephraim Katz calls
>MY DARLING CLEMENTINE one of Ford's great Western masterpieces.  Leonard
>Maltin gives it four stars and calls it "one of Ford's finest films, and an
>American classic." Leeper calls it "a horrible turkey of the first water."
>     First of all, the historical story and the title song have no
>connection whatsoever.  To force the song into the film, they have thrown a
>character named Clementine in.  She adds a tepid love interest.  Henry
>Fonda's Wyatt Earp keeps saying, "I shore do like that name--Clementine."
>The historical story and the plot of the film have almost no connection.  In
>the film the hostilities start when the Clantons rustle the Earp's cattle
>and kill Wyatt's young teenage brother James.  James Earp was the eldest of
>the Earp brothers and he lived 45 years after the gunfight.  From there the
>story goes really bizarre.  The Earps are once again white-washed into being
>pure good guys, and shy around women to boot.  In the film, the population
>of Tombstone loves the Earps.  This is not a terrible film; it is skillfully
>made and adequately photographed.  The script really lets down the rest of
>the film however.  I have to say that MY DARLING CLEMENTINE is a vastly
>over-rated classic.  Give it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
 
The man was an artist, not a historian!  I think most, if not all, great
artists take liberties with their respective subject matters.  I think a
moviegoer as experienced as Mark is being a bit naive when he goes to a
Hollywood production of the 1940s and expects authenticity.  Leave the 
quibbling about what actually happened to the academics--I know to go to
the library (like you did) if I want to get closer to the truth.  For me,
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE is a beautiful film--high production values, as
usual, but more than that--a marvelous exposition of the themes that flow
through Ford's greatest works: family loyalty, sense of duty, and the
necessity of courage.  I give it a 3 on the -4 to 4 scale.  In the quote
you attributed to Ford, I think he was referring only to his reenactment
of the actual gunfight, rather than the events leading up to it, but even
if he wasn't, I can only repeat the line the reporter says in THE MAN WHO
SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, Ford's masterpiece and in many ways a summation of
his career: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." 


-- 

UUCP:	seismo!umcp-cs!dday                      Dennis Doubleday
CSNet:	dday@umcp-cs				 University of Maryland
ARPA:	dday@gymble.umd.edu			 College Park, MD 20742
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