Not often cited--but should be--as one of the greatest westerns ever made and certainly among John Ford's best work. It is an amazing display of composition, camerawork, and lighting. Calling this the best Wyatt Earp movie is sensible, even if it's quite loose with history and diverges more from historical accuracy than even Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Virgil Earp is played by a younger actor than Ward Bond who plays Morgan. Clementine as a love interest for Wyatt is a fictional character. So is Chihuahua, the saloon singer and mistress of Doc Holliday. Wyatt starting out as a cattle rancher with his brothers is also fiction. Oh, and Doc dies in the OK Corral shootout. Despite all this it captures something about the Tombstone saga and Wyatt Earp that no other film does.

The opening 30 minutes is so beautifully-shot using thick shadows and chiaroscuro lighting that it evokes noir. Ford shoots with very dark blacks and shadows. The mood set by the nocturnal rain in the first few shots is unlike any western made up to this point. Henry Fonda as Wyatt also offers us a more reserved, earnest, and vulnerable version of the man. Ford lingers on characters' faces so we feel what they're thinking without dialogue. Highlighting Wyatt's besotted affection for Clementine is endearing and atypical when what we usually get in other films is a stoic Wyatt. Doc Holliday is also played admirably by Victor Mature who imbues the legendary figure with a brooding and hotheaded personality. He may not be as charismatic as Kirk Douglas but he offers a fresh performance.

Walter Brennan as Ike Clanton is equally compelling. No hint of the jovial old coot he'd later become famous for playing. Here he's sober and poised. When Morgan visits the Clanton house after chasing a wounded Billy Clanton, Brennan is just sitting by the bedside with a rifle. As Morgan turns to leave Ike shoots him in the back in cold blood; it looked quite shocking and brutal like I hadn't seen from a western of this period. The whole somber mood of the film doesn't drag the pace or seem depressing. There's just enough tension, minor action, and fluctuations between drama and lightheartedness.

Roger Ebert rated this film highly for good reason. If you look at lists of great westerns compiled by filmmakers and western aficionados in the 70s, Clementine is invariably at the top. It seems to have lost cache in the following decades when it needs to be revived in the canon. There's that famous scene with Fonda balancing his foot on a post and leaning back in a chair as he holds his arms out. A remarkable improvisation that would be imitated in other westerns. Over a decade later in Ford's Two Rode Together, we see an homage to this particular scene/gesture by Jimmy Stewart.

The OK Corral shootout played out in a different fashion from history or from the Douglas/Lancaster film, but it had a satisfying set-piece apart from Doc being killed. He was cast as a tragic figure in this story, even as the film ends with a hopeful Wyatt riding away from Clementine. Her name being part of the title tells the audience what this movie is really about: amidst the turmoil of the Tombstone saga Wyatt is yearning most for Clementine. So it's a veiled love story more than a shoot-em-up western. For me it outclasses Ford's cavalry trilogy and is worthy of being in a top 10 ranking of greatest westerns.