IMDb plot summary: The Earps battle the Clantons at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
Directed by John Ford. Starring Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, and Cathy Downs.
My Darling Clementine is a western in which the character the movie is named after technically exists but has absolutely zero bearing on the plot. The movie is actually about Wyatt Earp becoming Tombstone's Marshal, befriending Doc Holliday, and attempting to find the man who murdered his brother. I seldom feel more out of sync with the rest of the movie criticism world than when watching a western. This film is regarded as one of Ford's very best, but it doesn't hold together for me. I found this script to be strange and sloppy -- for example, at one point Doc Holliday tells someone to "leave town or I will." They don't, he confronts them to tell them, fine, he's leaving because they won't, and Earp corners him to tell him he can't run people out of town. But... he isn't? Because he's just leaving instead? The whole script feels like this. I kept finding myself deeply frustrated by how dumb it made the characters sound, which I don't think was the intention. And while it's a small thing, that title really DOESN'T make sense -- Clementine isn't the catalyst for any single thing in the plot, nor does she function as a narrative symbol. Given how loved this film is, it must have its merits, but I just can't find them. There isn't a satisfying throughline or rich characters or, really, anything that holds my interest.
How it entered my Flickchart:
My Darling Clementine < The Dinner Guest
My Darling Clementine < Spirits of the Dead
My Darling Clementine > The Watcher in the Woods
My Darling Clementine > The Butterfly Effect
My Darling Clementine > Graveyard of Honor (1975)
My Darling Clementine > Throw Momma from the Train
My Darling Clementine < Syrup
My Darling Clementine > The Peanut Butter Falcon
My Darling Clementine < Jake's Women
My Darling Clementine > From Here to Eternity
My Darling Clementine > Wuthering Heights
My Darling Clementine < X2
Final spot: #2444 out of 3214, or 24%.
No comments:
Post a Comment