My Darling Clementine

Year: 1946

Grade: C+

Country: USA

Director: Ford

Review

it’s a good film about the earps, but other films have done it better. victor mature was good as doc holiday – he had the right look – both powerful/desirable and dark/mysterious. i think that kirk douglas had a more powerful performance as doc holiday in gunfight at the ok corral, but overall mature may have been better. henry fonda was solid as wyatt earp. somehow, though, the film lacked a forward momentum. the ends were good, but the middle was sluggish – bogged down mostly by the love story that starts a third of the way through the film. technically the film is strong – sound and lighting are strong points, however they don’t propel the story so… also, why so many dissolves? after watching a peter jackson film and a kurosawa film this film’s excessive use of the dissolve stands out. maybe it was ford’s way of linking each scene in a more substantial way; as if each scene is intrinsically connected with the next…so as to avoid any breakage from one scene to the next. it’s tough to say because i’ve only seen it once and because it seems like you could interpret a dissolve in lots of different ways. with ford, though, you have to assume that he used them for a definite purpose. i wish i could like this movie more.