My Darling Clementine (1946)

My Darling Clementine (1946) is a poetic, mythic Western rather than a noir-inflected one. But yet it surfaces in film noir lists as crossover material, and the big critickers of the century do like to hat-tip it as a noiresque style of western adventure.

I’m curious about the film noir style in My Darling Clementine, noting moody cinematography, deep shadows, lawlessness, and moral ambiguity. Characters like Doc Holliday and Linda Darnell enrich this dark, personal narrative.

Although My Darling Clementine (1946) is most often celebrated as a classical John Ford Western rather than a noir-inflected film, a few stylistic and thematic elements overlap with the film noir sensibility. Below are some of the key noir-like components you can find in the film.

For You I Die (1947)

For You I Die (1947) is a low budget thriller of an innocent con on the run.

Kicking off in a sewer, two characters are thrust out of the void and into their own noir universe. 

Tense, nervous, fighting their way from the lowest and worst of all locales, to attain some kind of freedom and decency.

That’s Noir, living in a sewer for three days, desperate and on the run, trying to get some clothes, trying to get some dough, trying to get to San Francisco.

Two of the lowest of the low in the cheapest of the cheapest of sewers are on the run in the land of the free.

And this is where film noir enjoyed taking us in the 1940s. The enjoyment of life is there in other people, in those whom we love and trust. 

The Dark Corner (1946)

Classic film noir — deceitful people at work — a private dick with a dicky past — a murderous art dealer with an obsession about a woman in a painting — sluggings in the dark — frame ups — a cheating wife — crosses — double crosses.

The Dark Corner (1946), directed by Henry Hathaway, presents full-on film noir in the shape of an ex-con detective willing to bend the rules at every point, with the most wholesome role going to an angelic Lucille Ball — though even dear sweet Lucille is up to her elbows in it.

Up to her neck in fact, in blood, lying, is conspiracy to conceal evidence, washing murder weapons and immediately opting to cover up a crime rather than report it . . .

Welcome to the Dark Corner of Film Noir!