My Darling Clementine

John Ford's OK Corral film carries an odd claim to authority. Ford said that as a prop boy in the silent era he used to see Wyatt Earp visiting friends on set, and that he would give him a chair and a cup of coffee while Earp described the gunfight. What he was told and what ended up on screen are not the same thing. The film dates the shootout to 1882; it happened in 1881. Doc Holliday was a dentist rather than a surgeon, and unlike in the film he survived. Most of it was shot in Monument Valley, roughly 500 miles from the real Tombstone. There is also a studio problem. After watching Ford's cut, Darryl F. Zanuck found it long and slack in places, brought in Lloyd Bacon to shoot new material, and trimmed around 30 minutes. The version people watch is not the film Ford delivered. Who it is for: viewers who love the western as mood rather than action. The most famous shot here is not a gunfight but Henry Fonda balancing a chair on a porch. Who it is not for: anyone expecting historical accuracy.