Hi Hondo, Chester and Itdo
Before I start can I say that I consider John Ford's 'My Darling Clementine' one of his finest pictures and very similar to 'Young Lincoln' which besides also starring Henry Fonda also had a number of similarities particularly in the dance and grave scenes.
However-
As you rightly say Itdo Ford never spoke much about My Darling Clementine even when pressed to name his favourite pictures.
Ford prided himself on his meticulous adherence to history particulary in his westerns and always followed the historical facts. A close inspection of the entire film reveals that in this case his knowledge of the Earps, and even stranger when Ford states that he counted Wyatt Earp among his personal friends and actually had Earp's rifle, was lacking somewhat.
apparantly James Earp was the eldest of the brothers not the youngest and could not have been killed in a cattle rustling incident as the Earps did not own cattle in Tombstone. He was killed in 1881 and not 1882.
By the time of the gunfight in October 1881 Old Man Clanton was dead.
None of the Earps had been shot prior to the gunfight and all emerged unscathed from the resulting battle although both Morgan and Virgil were subsequently killed in seperate incidents.
The biggest alteration to history is when Ford killed off Doc Holliday when he actually died from tuberulosis in a Colarado sanitarium in 1885.
In 'John Ford's American West' Ford explained how he came to film the actual gunfight and placed the emphasis on the arrival of the stagecoach. He explained that Wyatt Earp had told him about the gunfight and how he had planned his entire strategy on the arrival of the stage and the ensuing dust being enough to give him covering fire.
Watching 'My Darling Clementine' you can understand the later 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' and the statement 'when the legend becomes fact print the legend'.
Regarding the cutting Ford was a great believer in cutting with the camera, and on occasions he would hold his hand in front of the camera thus self cutting. This ensured that the editor was left with very little film to play with.
Darryl Zanuck however in scenes reminiscent of The Barbarian and the Geisha got the film and took out a number of scenes. Jane Darnell as the madam of the whorehouse was particully savaged to little more than a cameo role.
When Ford found out what Zanuck had done he was most displeased and felt that the picture had been taken away from him.
Others felt that the clash was a simple matter of Ford adopting a deliberate well ordered structure as opposed to Zanucks impatience and that his resulting fast structure had destroyed the rhythm of the picture.
Although the film received good reviews it was not considered to be a classic and its supporters while being complimentary about the direction and the beauty of the picture dismissed it as at worst horse opera and at best as a rip roaring saga.
His critics weren't so complimentry one found the film to be 'a slow poke cowboy epic ruined by Ford's pictorializing', while another claimed: that Ford's happy preoccupation with style reduced his material to a sentimental legend of rural America'
Taking your point in an earlier post Itdo the film is an art form to be enjoyed. Documentaries are for fact, and I will now repeat what I said earlier, right wrong or indifferent factual or legend I find Ford's
westerns very watchable and I do like 'My Darling Clementine'
Regards
Arthur
