by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

In last month’s column, we talked about how John Ford’s 1939 Stagecoach moved westerns out of the “B” picture and brought the genre back to Hollywood prominence, thanks in part to location shooting and new stars like Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. From 1939, we are jumping ahead to the latter half of the 1940s and looking at two of the major post-World War II westerns: Ford’s My Darling Clementine, and Howard Hawks’ first western, Red River. 

During the war, John Ford worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an intelligence branch of the U.S. military. He directed documentaries and propaganda, including at Midway (where he was wounded) and Normandy Beach on D-Day. Along with Samuel Fuller and George Stevens, Ford was one of the Hollywood directors who documented the Allied liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Read the book Five Came Back by Mark Harris (or watch the excellent Netflix documentary adapted from the book) for more details on this and some more direct commentary for how this might have changed Ford’s outlook (he remains an enigmatic figure). All of this is important table-setting for My Darling Clementine, as it was Ford’s first postwar film.

What kind of town is this, anyway?

Clementine is one of many fictionalized versions of the showdown between Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda, here) and the Clantons at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Ford uses this story to make what might be the most perfectly distilled of western storylines. A man comes to town, helps the town transition further towards “civilization,” and then leaves. Earp here is not unlike future President Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln (also played by Fonda). Using the tools of their trade, they help progress, pushing American law and order further west. 

It’s easy to see Earp as an allegorical figure for America’s involvement in the second World War. After the murder of his brother, Earp sees his stepping up into the role of marshal as temporary, and is primarily motivated by vengeance, but the legal kind. Both of these line up with how America saw itself joining the Allies. Earp sees the law as needing to remove other violent authorities, Pa Clanton (Walter Brennan) and Doc Holliday (Victor Mature). Clanton controls the cattle business, while Holliday represents the lawless saloon culture of gambling and brothels. Both are obstacles to government “for the people, by the people,” because they are allowed to act unchecked in their own self-interest. Holliday, already at the end of his life because of tuberculosis, does form an alliance with Earp, showing that a bit of pleasure can be worked into an orderly society, but authoritarianism cannot. 

Postwar America is also a time of huge transition. While film and television largely portrayed this time as an era of  prosperity, suburban life, and Leave it to Beaver–at least for white, middle class Americans–there was also a sense of malaise and directionlessness that was part of the American psyche at the time. This was especially prevalent among veterans, many of whom suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. John Huston’s documentary, Let There Be Light, showed this firsthand and was banned by the military. Ford expresses this via the extensive use of liminal spaces. Fonda’s Earp is often shown in door frames, under arches (essentially gateways), and even in a partially constructed church. The transition from anarchy to “civilization” is the transition here, and acts an analogue for America transitioning out of wartime. Ford was always concerned with American history, and some of Clementine is based on his recollection of meeting the real Wyatt Earp–though Earp was a master of self-mythologizing. The sense of unease that prevailed in the early days postwar places alongside other works like The Best Years of Our Lives from fellow veteran director William Wyler, and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.

All of this is deeply set within the film itself. But something that is striking to me is how much Earp and Holliday are cut off from the society around them. They are killers, and no matter the reason for that, it has still left a mark on them. They are changed by that experience, and so much of the way Ford shows them within the frame maintains a sense of distance. While the story may end on a hopeful note, there is a deep-seated melancholy throughout. Another way this is all captured is through Fonda and Mature’s eyes. Windows into the soul, of course, and another liminal space. When Doc Holliday finishes the Hamlet soliloquy, we see his eyes shine with introspection. How many men has he sent into “the undiscovered country” of the afterlife? And how poorly is he bearing the ills he’s caused?

The repeated line “What kind of town is this, anyway?” cuts to the core of all of these themes. A town is a marker for “civilization,” yet Tombstone seems as “savage” as any place imaginable. By focusing on this transition, Ford’s view of this rivalry is as much about haircuts and dancing as it is about the legendary shootout. While some westerns lament the closing of the frontier, My Darling Clementine does not. It notes the transition, eyes open to the pain that can be dealt out in the name of authority. And it echoes American history in parallel, correlating expansion across the continent to emerging as a global superpower post World War II. 

Red River, Howard Hawks’ first official western, was also produced in 1946, though it wasn’t released until 1948. Unlike the director and principal male stars of Clementine, Hawks, John Wayne, and Montomery Clift did not serve in World War II (Wayne for his age and marital status, Clift for chronic dysentery). So while it may not tap into the mentality of veterans the way that Clementine did, it nonetheless gives us a glimpse into how postwar America and the western evolved together. 

In Hawks’ film, based on Borden Chase’s “Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail," serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, John Wayne plays Thomas Dunson, who leaves a wagon train to start a cattle ranch in Texas. The train is massacred soon after, and Thomas adopts Matt (Mickey Kuhn/Clift), the only survivor. The story jumps ahead fourteen years, and Thomas needs to drive his cattle elsewhere, as the price of beef has plummeted due to the economic collapse in the South as an outcome of the Civil War. This spurns on the cattle drive which forms the central narrative of Red River. By the end of it, Tom and Matt have had a falling out over Tom’s increasingly Ahab-like behavior, and come to blows over it. 

Rather than reflecting back on the war, Red River presages America’s role in the world in the postwar landscape. Tom Dunson, having spent fourteen years working the land and building his empire, is almost thwarted by circumstances he cannot control. His stubbornness and tyrannical leadership style evoke Douglas MacArthur and the lack of success the United States would see in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Generals and the military industrial complex were so focused on the Communist bogeyman that it would consume American foreign policy entirely. Matt, the younger generation who wants respect and a seat at the table, represents the next generation of soldiers and leaders.

In a more direct way, Red River captures the postwar sense of uncertainty that pervaded America. When Tom made his original plan, it was a safe bet that only required hard work and dedication. But after the Civil War, everything has changed, requiring drastic action in order to achieve his American dream. Along the way from the ranch to Missouri, Tom and Matt have to react to unforeseen obstacles and consistently redefine their priorities. Tom especially had started out only focused on the success of his ranch, but realizes what is most meaningful is his relationship with his adopted son, Matt. 

Hawks captures the spirit of the age through the use of scale. While many scenes feature hundreds of cattle roving across open sky prairies, just as much of the film feels smaller scale. There’s an intimacy to Red River, especially in the scenes set at night where even the edges of the frame almost feel obscured by the darkness. This not only shows Hawks’ command at directing dialogue-heavy films, creating and sustaining tension throughout, but captures the way that the small moments in our lives are just as consequential as large scale events. 

I would offer both My Darling Clementine and Red River as exemplary westerns. Each wrestles with masculinity, angst, and America’s place in the world in different ways. There are endless angles to explore these movies from, and I’ve only just scratched the surface here. One of the things I love about the genre is that it is America openly wrestling with itself and its own legacy, a theme we will continue to return to over the course of this series.

Join me in April for two westerns from 1950: The Furies and Winchester ‘73