Just when it seems there's nothing left to watch, and all hope for a great movie is lost...here comes the cavalry!
Directed by John Ford, Fort Apache (1948) stars Henry Fonda as a colonel named Thursday assigned to command a remote Arizona Territory cavalry fort. Though Thursday finds the detail ignominious, and resents being "shunted to a ten-penny post," he shows his military mettle maintaining regulations way on out in the wide-open spaces sloppy with enlisted men named O'Rourke and a big ol' mess o' mesas towering in the distance.
Loaded with loaded Irish-Americans, fiery, unforgettable dialogue, and black-and-white shots of Monument Valley worthy of Ansel Adams, Fort Apache is funny as hell and boasts fantastic action.
"Who goes there?"
"It's your new commanding officer."
"Holy Moses!"
"No, it's your new commanding officer."
Thursday's daughter, played by Shirley Temple circa age 20, finds herself upon arrival immediately interested in movie newcomer John Agar. Agar's father is played by John Ford stock character actor Ward Bond, but it's that other staple Ford Western veteran Victor McGlaglin who steals every scene. Quoth ex-boxer McGlaglin, addressing green recruits:
"Is there any man here from County Sligo?"
"Yessir!"
"Now we don't want to show any favoritism about this, but you're now an acting corporal."
McGlaglin plays a character named Festus seven years before the TV show "Gunsmoke" was created by Charles Marquis Warren, himself a WWII Navy commander. Ken Curtis, who played an entirely different character on the show years later named Festus, happened to be John Ford's son-in-law.
Ford would later make two more "frontier pictures," She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Searchers (1956), each featuring the iconic Western presence whom he made a star, John Wayne. Depending on one's aesthetic, Fort Apache may well hold Wayne's most likable role. As Kirby York, Wayne shows deference to his commanding officer, but stands up to Fonda when it comes to paying respect to the Apaches and their chief.
"Colonel Thursday, I gave my word to Cochise. No man is gonna make a liar out of me, sir."
The film is about as realistic a depiction of the West as Disney's Frontierland, and every bit as fun. It also seems to have directly influenced director Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) both visually and thematically.
An interesting cinematic side note: the co-producer to Fort Apache, Merian C. Cooper, not only co-wrote and co-produced King Kong (1933), he also flew fighter planes for both the US and Poland, actively served in both world wars, and was eventually promoted to brigadier general.
Fort Apache also promotes some movie mistruths. Half the time we see officers and enlisted alike of Irish ancestry seeking to avail themselves of hard spirits. And this is nothing but a dirty lie, when in fact the seeking to avail would go non-stop.
At the big dance, everybody brings a bottle to spike the punch. As one guy says addressing the crowd, "The food is exquisite...and the punch, WOW!"
In 99% of Hollywood's Westerns, the depiction of Native Americans is staggeringly abysmal. If the Indians get any lines, they're usually played by white guys. The clothes they wear look like they came from the Sears catalog. And they're just nothing like Indians at all. Here however, although the Native American presence does not figure prominently enough, and we certainly don't get to see through Apache eyes, the due respect paid cannot be denied. As Wayne's Kirby says of Cochise, "Six campaigns, he's out-generaled us, outfought us, and outrun us."
Corny as anything and a real hoot, this rousing Western is almost impossible to watch without wanting to stop everything and join the Apaches--or at least the cavalry.
Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE
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