U6183@WVNVM.BITNET (Mike Karolchik) (02/21/90)
Yup, it's that time again. The crowds of curious filmgoers get larger every week as word of the WVNET matinee spreads throughout the world. If you can't make it to Morgantown for this week's show, at least you can take comfort in knowing that the week is half over. And now... ----------------------------------------------------------------- You've been working hard all week and you've got a case of the cranks. I'm confident this week's entertainment will make new men out of you -- ah, except for you women. This movie's a classic. It's got the three things that make a movie great: horses, cowboys, and horses. You mighta guessed, it's a western. It's called -- now hold onto your hats -- MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. See, you feel better already. That's the way Colonel Potter introduced this week's WVNET Matinee attraction when he showed it to the troops of the 4077th in a memorable episode of TV's M.A.S.H. I can't put it more succinctly, but I can add some background notes. MY DARLING CLEMENTINE is not only "a western," it's one of the handful of genuine classics of the form. It was made in 1946 by John Ford, one of the greatest directors in the history of the cinema by almost anybody's standards, and an important influence on other filmmakers as diverse as Akira Kurosawa and Orson Welles (who watched Ford's STAGECOACH over and over when preparing to make CITIZEN KANE). CLEMENTINE may be the definitive film version of the story of the famous shootout between the Earps and the Clantons in Tombstone, Arizona in the 1880's (a leading contender is John Sturges' fine GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL). This encounter has probably inspired more films and TV shows than any other single incident in the history of the Old West -- even an episode of STAR TREK. The facts behind the fracas are hotly disputed to this day. Ford was always deeply interested in American history, and he got Wyatt Earp's own version of the story when he met Earp in Hollywood during the silent era, and he presents the gunfight just as Wyatt remembered it in this film. Ford may have chosen to gloss over some aspects of the "real" story because he believed that mythology is more important than historical fact, but he was always very straightforward about this attitude: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend," says the newspaper editor who refuses to print the truth about "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" in another Ford masterpiece. Whatever the facts may have been, Ford's recounting of the O.K. Corral saga is great mythology. The fine cast includes Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, Walter Brennan as a particularly nasty Old Man Clanton, Victor Mature as Doc Holliday, Linda Darnell as "Chihuahua," Tim Holt, Don Garner, John Ireland, Cathy Downs and many familiar faces from the Ford "stock company" of players -- Ward Bond, Alan Mowbray, Grant Withers, Mickey Simpson, Jane Darwell, Russell Simpson, Hank Worden, Francis Ford, Jack Pennick and J. Farrell MacDonald. Meet us for the showdown at High Noon this Wednesday and Thursday in the WVNET Corral, unless yuh wanta git outta town. And yuh better come packin' a sandwich, podner. (George Chastain)