Kill a man!
John Fords take on the Earp legend "My Darling Clementine" is on TCM @ 8PM EST tonight.
Walter Brennan as Old Man Clanton steals the show, IMHO.

A very entertaining film by America's greatest director. It's puzzling that the one director who actually knew Wyatt Earp could get that event so very wrong.

I realize the director's prerogative of artistic license but Ford took a gunfight which lasted perhaps 30 seconds and took place in an alley which measured 16 x 24 feet, and turned it into a wide-ranging gun battle out in the open and lasting several minutes. And IIRC, Doc Holliday is killed in Ford's version of the exchange.

The only film which comes close to this degree of inaccuarcy is John Sturges' 1957 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. In that film, Sturges recreated Ford's wide-ranging, minutes-long gunfight out in the open.

This does a disservice to the history.

Kasden's Wyatt Earp seems to come closest to the truth, with Tombstone a fairly close second- all except for that winking and "Oh my God" crap.

Kasden's version omits Virgil Earp's lines of "We're hear to disarm you. Throw up your hands" and "Halt! That's not what I want!" which do appear to have actually been said. The Tombstone version does include these lines, but the gunfight in that film clocks in at over a minute, whereas Kasden's version is about 40 seconds long.

Tombstone also shows Ike Clanton obtaining a pistol and shooting out of the window from inside Fly's Studio. This appears to be pure fiction. As far as I can tell, an unarmed Ike Clanton simply ran away when the shooting started.

I just clocked te gunfight in My Darling Clementine. From first shot to the first death- 90 seconds. From first shot to last shot- almost three and a half minutes, and Doc Holliday is killed in the fight. Not even close to the truth.

This is from a man who knew Wyatt Earp and who surely asked Earp about the event which made him famous.

Agree.... The history is lacking. And I doubt that Holliday was prone to quoting Hamlet.

I've often said that Victor Mature as Doc Holiday was a well cast as having Joe DiMaggio in the role.

Interesting. Does anyone really believe Johnny Ringo killed himself? Sounds dubious.

From the reading I've done, Doc Holliday was not the expert gun fighter that the movies have made him out to be.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
Interesting. Does anyone really believe Johnny Ringo killed himself? Sounds dubious.

From the reading I've done, Doc Holliday was not the expert gun fighter that the movies have made him out to be.

That may be but he did manage to die with his boots on.

BTW: Years later, Walter Brennan satirized his role as Old Man Clanton, by playing the patriarch of the Danby clan in Support Your Local Sheriff.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: NK402,

What I remember from that movie is the dance scene... that is one of the most iconic scenes in any movie for me... I don't know why but it is...

but then we all have to recognize that no movie based on real events is going to come close to the truth.... having known Mr. Earp in a previous life... but that is a story best told over bourbon and cigars...

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
A very entertaining film by America's greatest director. It's puzzling that the one director who actually knew Wyatt Earp could get that event so very wrong.

Interesting take on John Ford, who was was responsible for "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." Maybe Mr. Ford was doing for Earp in 1946, what he later described in 1962 using the line, "When legend becomes fact, print the legend"?

I think what many TV viewers miss is Westerns are not only supposed to be about the story but also the back ground. Ford really knew how to put the beauty and expanse of the west on the big screen.

I'm not a "TV viewer". I am a very dedicated, lifelong student of film and film history.

What Ford did was irresponsible and selfish. He could stage all the fictitious gun fights he wanted, in any number of Westerns he made. Instead, he chose to use a piece of American history as if it was nothing but a movie script churned out in the 20th Century by some Hollywood hack. I consider John Ford to be America's greatest director and I am far from alone in this sentiment, but Ford was an arrogant bastard who oftimes belittled actors both on and off the set of his films.

Why is it acceptable to alter so greatly one of the key events in the history of the American West? Much is known about the gunfight. There were eywitnesses to the exchange, whose accounts were written about in the immediate aftermath. The sworn testimony of the surviving participants still exists, yet Ford had the gall to alter it so radically, going so far as to kill one of the surviving participants, Doc Holliday.

How would it be if Ford had applied the same arrogant "I own history" attitude to, say, D-Day? How would it be if Ford had directed a film in which Dwight Eisenhower is killed on Omaha beach? How about a film in which Douglas MacArthur is captured and tortured by the Japanese?

Oh, we couldn't have that, could we? No, because Ford had himself a commission in that war, and I guess he owned that piece of history, too. If Ford was still alive, you wouldn't dare suggest such things to his face but it's pefectly fine for him to use a piece of American history like it's chewing gum and then spits out when he's done with it.

Ford was uniquely positioned to re-tell the 1881 gunfight, having met and talked with Wyatt Earp but he threw it away like it was nothing but another shootout in just another oater because it served his ego. Shameful and arrogant.