![]() ![]() ![]() Of course, no film is independent of the era in which it was made. Wyatt Earp’s transformation from a drifter cowboy to a barbered lawman, the transformation of “Doc” Holliday from gun toting roughneck to supporter of the Marshall, and the town’s acceptance of the new order in which they will all protect one another are all evidence of what John Ford was trying to say. By its nature, a square dance expects its participants to accept rules, direction, and order. Wyatt Earp and his “Lady Fair” participate in a raucous, delightful square dance. (Note how just beyond the Church boundaries is a vast lawless frontier.) He frames the new church against the background of a wide-open, lawless frontier just behind it. The establishment of the church itself is indicative of the coming of civilization, but Ford does not stop there. In one of the most memorable scenes, Fonda accompanies Linda Darnell to lay the foundation of the town’s first church. He sits with his feet up on a railing in front of the barbershop, and we see that that is literally the end of the town. ![]() Quite often, Henry Fonda (Wyatt Earp) is framed in a way that puts the infant town behind him and an endless frontier in front of him. But look deeper at how Ford frames the shots and you sense the more profound message he is trying to convey. The breathtaking cinematography of Monument Valley is often remembered as a highlight of ” My Darling Clementine.” Deservedly so. Although the characterizations may seem as obvious as in the early days of professional wrestling–the Earp family are all good guys and the Clanton family are all bad guys–there is something much deeper going on here. In “My Darling Clementine,” John Ford examines how a community becomes a civilization. The settling of the American West is a story that can be told from many different perspectives. However, I think “My Darling Clementine” is in many ways the greatest of all those I mentioned. ( “Wyatt Earp,” “Tombstone,” “Gunfight at The OK Corral”) As a Western, it sets the stage for John Ford’s later, more challenging “The Searchers,” “Cheyenne Autumn,” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” It also opens the door for numerous films about the shootout. On the surface, it is about the famous “Shootout at the OK Corral” between Wyatt Earp and the evil Clanton gang. On the surface, this 1946 John Ford classic film is simply one of the greatest Westerns ever made. What those letters revealed may never be known, but Sister Mary was reborn on screen as Clementine Carter.“My Darling Clementine” A powerful film about the moment when a frontier becomes a civilization – and a community decides to live under the law. Most of these letters were burned after Sister Mary's death in 1939 by her sister, who feared that the letters were tarnish the nun's reputation. After Doc's death in 1887 her letters were among the possessions of his sent back to Georgia. Although Sister Mary never made a trip out west to bring Doc home, they corresponded via letters for the rest of his life. As Sister Mary Melanie she would become an elementary school teacher, exactly like her cinematic counterpart. In 1883, unlike her cinematic counterpart, Mattie decided to enter the Sisters of Mercy Convent to become a Catholic nun. There would be no other man for her after John. His farewell to her surely was an emotional time and as a result she never married. When Doc left Georgia in 1873, Mattie was distraught after separating from the only man she truly loved. Although romantic relationships and marriage between cousins were common in the Southern United States of the nineteenth century, Mattie's devout Catholic parents wholeheartedly disapproved. Mattie was the eldest daughter of Robert Kennedy Holliday and Mary Anne Fitzgerald. While the character of Clementine Carter was by and large a product of the movie's fiction, she did have a historical counterpart in Doc Holliday's first cousin named Martha Ann "Mattie" Holliday.
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