John Ford elevated the Western to the level of great screen art, and My Darling Clementine is his undisputed masterpiece in the genre. Ford's beloved Monument Valley has never appeared more striking and picturesque than in this film, a sublimely beautiful vision of life in the cattle country during a period of growth. The story, based on the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, is beautifully written, filled with humor and humanity yet so crisply edited that every scene pushes toward the final shootout. The casting, as Christopher J. Warren notes, is somewhat unusual. “Wyatt Earp, who was rather a flamboyant lawman, is well played by Henry Fonda with softspoken gentleness and quiet strength. Fonda represented, possibly even more than John Wayne, Ford's conception of the best in American manhood. The five films they made together between 1939 and 1948 (not counting the flawed and ill-conceived The Fugitive in 1947) denote this fine performer's best acting achievements. (Unfortunately, the two friends had a violent falling out during and over the filming of Mr. Roberts in 1955 and never associated with each other professionally again.) The casting of Victor Mature was equally unusual. This limited actor...gave the best performance of his career as the brooding and tortured Doc Holliday, a lawman in spite of himself. But the strangest piece of casting (and also the film's best performance) is America's favorite and finest character actor, Walter Brennan, as Old Man Clanton. Gone is the loveable, toothless, grizzled old-timer of Red River and Rio Bravo. Here is a portrait that is the very embodiment of evil.”