Beginning of Essay
My Darling Clementine to me didn't stick out as a particularly dark movie. I will agree that there were a lot of dark scenes in it but not enough to distract me toward the idea of this being a particularly dark film as a whole. However the dark noir lighting style ....

Middle of Essay
.... into the story but for a much simpler purpose. Here in Clementine I think it's used merely as a pictorial element. A tool, to enhance a scene here and there with little relevance to the story line. This film did have very elaborate dark scenes but still not enough to put it under the label of noir as a whole. The difference is that here I belive that one of those "bright sunny day" sequences that I mentioned before would not look so out of place in a film like this. I agree that the western is one of our most traditional genres with John Ford it's most conservative directors. But the only western that I have ever scene that has ever pulled off the w ....