Tribute: Kenneth Lonergan

My Darling Clementine

John Ford
USA 1946
106 min
V'16

Ford’s version of the famous shooting at O.K Corral and his prehistory also tells the story about the change of a pioneer’s society and the fist right to a civil constitutional state. Only this enables Sheriff Wyatt earp to catch up with the modern age and protect the citizens of tombstone so that they can enjoy prosperity and the beginning cultural life in peace.
“Ford takes great liberties with history, bending the story to fit his ideal of the West, a balance of social law and pioneer spirit. Though the film reaches its climax in the legendary gunfight between the earps and the Clantons, the most powerful moment is the moving Sunday morning church social played out on the floor of the unfinished church. As earp dances with Clementine – Fonda’s stiff, self-conscious movements showing a man unaccustomed to such social interaction – Ford’s camera frames them against the open sky: the town and the wilderness merge into the new eden of the West for a brief moment.” (Sean Axmaker)

In the presence of Kenneth Lonergan

Credits
  • Henry Fonda - Wyatt Earp
  • Linda Darnell - Chihuahua
  • Victor Mature - Doc Holliday
  • Walter Brennan - Old Man Clanton
  • Cathy Downs - Clementine Carter
  • Ward Bond - Morgan Earp
  • Samuel G. Engel
  • Winston Miller
  • Joseph MacDonald
  • Eugene Grossman
  • Dorothy Spencer
  • Cyril J. Mockridge
  • Lyle R. Wheeler
  • James Basevi
Twentieth Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox
35 mm
bw
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