Wordsworth, Hardy, Yeats, Frost, and Stevens each wrote hundreds of poems. Of the two or three thousand poems that the five of them wrote, a few score achieved something approaching perfection of feeling, thought, and form -- in other words, beauty. In the same way, of the hundreds of scenes that John Ford directed, a few score achieved beauty as well. As it happens, that beauty often has quite a bit to do with the U.S.A.
In the following scene from My Darling Clementine, nothing happens. It is Sunday morning. Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) leans back in a chair on the porch of a hotel in Tombstone. The townsfolk are heading to the church-meeting up the street. The church has not yet been built: only the frame of a bell tower and two flagpoles with flapping American flags stand against the sky.
Chihuahua (Linda Darnell) arrives. Henry Fonda leans his chair further back, holds out his arms, and places one foot, then the other, on the post, lightly bouncing up and down. No words are spoken. Chihuahua walks into the hotel to meet Doc Holliday.
An aside: this scene demonstrates that, as far back as 1946, Henry Fonda was way cooler than Marlon Brando, James Dean, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen (and any actor after them) ever were.
Monument Valley, Arizona -- one of John Ford's favorite locales --lies in the distance. (Monument Valley is actually about 400 miles away from the real Tombstone.) Wyatt is likely thinking about Clementine Carter. "I sure like that name . . . Clementine" is the final line of the movie. Vanished America.
