My Darling Clementine opened in November 1946 to generally good reviews and average box office, grossing a little over $2.8 million, a little better than breaking even.

Because of its optimism and simple idealism, Ford thought of My Darling Clementine "as essentially a film for children."

Ford was asked by a film historian why he changed the historical details of the famous gunfight if, as he claimed, the real Wyatt Earp had told him all about it on a movie set back in the 1920s. "Did you like the film?" Ford asked, to which the scholar replied it was one of his favorites. "What more do you want?" Ford snapped.

Stuart Lake, who wrote the Wyatt Earp biography that served as the basis for My Darling Clementine and many others, worked as an adviser on many of those productions in the 1950s. He also created the successful television series The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp, which ran from 1955 to 1961, for which he wrote more than two dozen episode scripts. He died in 1964 at the age of 74.

When the Arizona location shoot was completed, Ford and the studio (Fox) donated the Tombstone set to the Navajo tribal council to be disposed of as they wished. It remained there until 1951, when it was sold and carted off for salvage.

Following the production of My Darling Clementine, 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck offered Ford $600,000 a year to remain at the studio, but Ford, displeased with Zanuck's changes to the film and determined to be more autonomous than ever, decided to make his subsequent films under the banner of Argosy Pictures, the company he and Merian Cooper formed in 1939.

Along with John Wayne (and the supporting players who made up John Ford's long-standing stock company), Henry Fonda is the actor most associated with John Ford. Fonda's career was given a tremendous boost in his first three films with Ford: Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), and The Grapes of Wrath (1940), for which the actor earned his first of three Academy Award nominations. Among his other important roles for Ford were the rigid cavalry officer opposite Wayne in Fort Apache (1948) and the title role in Mister Roberts (1955). Fonda, like Wayne, had put up with Ford's often abusive behavior for many years, but the two had a permanent falling out on that last picture. Possibly because of this disagreement, but officially due to "illness" (which also could have meant complications due to Ford's alcoholism), Ford was replaced on that film by Mervyn LeRoy.

Long Island-born Cathy Downs started out as a model before breaking into the movies in the mid-1940s with uncredited roles as "Miss Cream Puff" and "Miss Mascara" in some big-budget Fox musicals. The studio was grooming her for bigger things with the title role in My Darling Clementine, but it never turned out that way for her. Most of her work in the following two decades was in low-budget westerns, horror, and sci-fi movies and the occasional TV appearance. She was married for a few years to actor-produce Joe Kirkwood, Jr. (son of a famous golfer who instructed President Eisenhower), with whom she co-starred in a series of movies based on the Joe Palooka comic strip character. After hearing she was in dire financial straits, ex-husband Kirkwood was putting together a trust fund for her when he learned of her death from cancer in 1976 at the age of 52.

Ward Bond (Morgan Earp) was perhaps the most prominent actor in John Ford's stock company, a group of supporting players he used in most of his pictures. Bond first appeared in a Ford film with Born Reckless (1930), and the two worked together 23 more times, through The Searchers (1956). Ford even directed Bond on television: an episode of Screen Directors Playhouse called "Rookie of the Year" (1955) and one episode of Bond's long-running Western series Wagon Train in 1957.

John Ford's elder brother Francis appears in an uncredited bit in My Darling Clementine as an old soldier. An actor since the early days of cinema and director of more than 170 silent films between 1912 and 1928, Francis appeared in 32 of his younger brother's pictures.

Former silent star Mae Marsh appears in an uncredited bit. She made her film debut in 1910 and starred in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). Once considered a successor to Lillian Gish, Marsh retired in 1918 on the eve of her marriage. When the Great Depression financially ruined her and her husband, she returned to films and appeared in 17 Ford movies between Drums Along the Mohawk and Cheyenne Autumn (1964), her final film role.

Danny Borzage can be seen playing the accordion in the saloon band. The brother of director Frank Borzage, he was frequently employed by Ford to play his accordion on the set as background or mood music, or simply to entertain cast and crew. An important member of Ford's stock company, he appeared in 14 of the director's films between The Iron Horse (1924) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

John Ireland, who plays Billy Clanton here, also appeared in a different version of the story, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), playing another Western legend, Johnny Ringo, who was known as the King of the Cowboys.

As dance hall owner Kate Nelson, Jane Darwell made her second on-screen appearance in a John Ford film, after her Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. She worked with Ford one other time previously as a voice actor only (along with Henry Fonda) in the director's war documentary The Battle of Midway (1942) and then four other pictures after Clementine, ending with The Last Hurrah (1958).

Screenwriter Winston Miller started his career in movies as a juvenile actor in the silent era. Two of his earliest roles were in the John Ford films The Iron Horse (1924) and Kentucky Pride (1925). His screenwriting career began with the Western The Vigilantes Are Coming (1936), and he wrote a number of Western scripts for features and television over the next 40 years, although he and Ford worked together only this one time. In 1960 he turned to producing television shows, working on such popular series as the Western The Virginian, Ironside, and Little House on the Prairie.

by Rob Nixon

Memorable Quotes from MY DARLING CLEMENTINE

OLD MAN CLANTON: Wide awake, wide open town of Tombstone. Get anything you want there.

WYATT EARP: What kind of town is this anyway?

WYATT: Got myself a job.
CLANTON: Cow punchin'?
WYATT: No. Marshalin'.

WYATT: Maybe when we leave this country, young kids like you will be able to grow up and live safe.

DOC HOLLIDAY: You haven't taken it into your head to deliver us from all evil?

WYATT: Stage is leavin' in thirty minutes. See you're on it.

DOC (referring to himself): The man you once knew is no more. There's not a vestige left of him.

VIRGIL EARP: I swear I can almost smell honeysuckle.
WYATT: That's me.

MORGAN EARP: You know, there's probably a lot of nice people around here. We just ain't met 'em.

WYATT: Mac, you ever been in love?
MAC: No, I've been a bartender all my life.

WYATT: Ma'am, I sure like that name. Clementine.

Compiled by Rob Nixon