Based on Stuart N. Lake’s biography “Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal,” MY DARLING CLEMENTINE won honours as an official selection of the National Film Preservation Board.
After Wyatt Earp’s (Henry Fonda) brother James is murdered by cattle rustlers, the frontier legend becomes Tombstone’s marshal and sets out to avenge the younger man’s death. Torn between his badge and his fury, Earp confronts the likely killers, the notoriously lawless family of Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan), setting the stage for the famed shootout at the O.K. Corral.
Along the way, Earp falls in love with a schoolteacher named Clementine (Cathy Downs), which pits him against the cantankerous Doc Holliday. While My Darling Clementine never loses its dynamism as a hard-hitting western, it is also a tender love story..