Mr John Ford knew how to use a movie camera - this is perhaps the most beautiful of all black and white Westerns, with its loving compositions and evocative atmosphere. The story isn't as good though it's effective, with Henry Fonda an ideal Wyatt Earp, rocking into Tombstone with his brothers and deciding to stick around and be Marshall when his brother is killed.
There is a remarkably strong support cast on display: Ward Bond and Tim Holt as Earp brothers (Holt wasn't that great an actor and his performance here isn't that inspired but he played in an awful lot of classic films throughout his career); Victor Mature in perhaps is best ever performance and definitely his greatest role as Doc Holliday; Walter Brennan as the terrifying Ike Clanton; Grant Withers and John Ireland as his sons (a terrific rogue's gallery of baddies); Linda Darnell (a much better actress than she was given credit for) as the Mexican singer-hooker; Alan Mowbray as a stage actor (a lovely little sequence); Jane Darwell as a local and J. Farrell MacDonald as the bartender. The only really damp squib is Cathy Downs as Clementine; she's not bad, just vanilla.
There's an irritating strand of racism through the story - Earp scolds people for selling liquor to Indians and makes cracks about Mexicans - but it's full of beautiful moments, and the depiction of violence consistently interesting: it comes in short, sharp bursts out of nowhere (having said that the final shoot out isn't that spectacular). Deserved classic.
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