Fort Apache

This is the first film which uses the US Cavalry as the background/set (as much as Monumental Valley) for telling us a typical John Ford story, there are the values of decency and common sense and the very important sense of humor in one side and bigotry and stupidity in the other... and that on the same side (meaning life in the regiment which is a metaphor of a rigid society)... confronted against the Indians who as usual in early Ford films just plays the danger OUTSIDE...
Filmed in black&white in the exceptional way of the master it has passed with honors the terrible true test of time and has become a classic.
The script is what you can expect, but mainly is a confrontation between the martinet colonel (from the East) played convincingly by Henry Fonda and the professional (in the West) played by an excellent John Wayne, add the usual love affair, the funny Irish sergeant tricks (read Victor McLaglen) etc.
John Ford will go on and do "SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON" in Technicolor (probably the best one of the so called "trilogy", and then "RIO GRANDE" again in black&white (this one as a compromise to raise money for the shooting of "THE QUIET MAN") with the benefit of Maureen O'Hara but probably the most inane of the three... if you add "THE HORSE SOLDIERS" (ACW), "SERGEANT RUTLEDGE" (buffalo soldiers) and "CHEYENNE AUTUMN" (crepuscular movie in defense of the indian natives)... it would eventually make six excellent films (plus the scenes where the cavalry appears in "STAGECOACH", "THE SEARCHERS" and "TWO RODE TOGETHER"...
If ever the US Cavalry needed a recruiting manager John Ford WAS AND IS IT (quite contradictory for a navy honorary admiral!).

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ADB

This is a great classic movie where the hero (John Wayne) struggles with what he knows is right and what he is ordered to do. Shirley Temple plays a spoiled daughter who falls in love for the first time against her parent's wishes, but love and duty both triumph in the end.

If you want to see Henry Fonda play the stiffest, grouchiest, most conceited, most pigheaded, most vainglorious, most embittered, most foolish military commander you can imagine, this is the right film.
With all these negatives, a watchable film is going too require a good deal of counterbalancing humor, song and female presence. John Ford duly provided such aplenty in the form of the cultural contrasts between the formal New Englander, Colonel Thursday(Fonda) and the rough and ready westerners inside and outside of the post he has come to command. Seems the ranks of the NCOs at this post are mostly filled with fun-loving Irishmen. Thursday's beautiful teen daughter, Philadelphia(Shirley Temple), provides an easy entry into the feminine presence in the fort.
A new West Point graduate, Lt. O'Rourke, also the son of resident Sergeant O'Rourke, happens to be arriving at the fort the same day as the Thursdays. The Colonel is very chagrined to find an escort waiting for Lt. O'Rourke, but not for himself! He's also chagrined to find that the party in progress when he arrives is not in his honor, but is a birthday party. "Whose birthday?" he asks menacingly. "General George Washington's", was the satisfactory answer. Thursday keeps addressing Lt. O'Rourke by various misnomers, suggesting he regards him so little that his name isn't worth remembering. Once he finds out that his daughter has designs on O'Rourke, he can finally remember his name! When Thursday is introduced to the former post commander, unbelievably, he declines to meet the extended hand of his predecessor!
This is the only film in which Ford's two favorite leading men, Fonda and Wayne, star together, usually as antagonists on how to properly deal with the Apaches. Wayne, as Cpt. York, is knowedgeable and respective of the Apache's ways, while Thursday refuses to learn from the experience of York nor to respect the military prowess and agreements of the Apaches. He does, however, come to share the general disgust with the appointed "indian" agent, whose self-serving policies have led some of the Apaches to abandon the reservation in favor of Mexico and others to kill some soldiers on details.
Anthony Mann later directed a film "The Last Frontier", in which the theme of an arrogant greenhorn commander from the East who refuses to heed the advice of those used to the local Native Americans, is repeated. Although not as well balanced as the present film, it's worth checking out. In both films, the offending commander has to be eliminated in order to allow a budding romance involving a woman dear to his heart to proceed to completion.
In my opinion, this is the most enjoyable western Ford(and perhaps anyone else) directed, in spite of Colonel Thursday's difficult personality and the absence of either Walter Brennan or Gabby Hayes(neither on Ford's list of essential supporting actors). It's my guess the name Thursday was meant to have some symbolic significance. Thursday is, of course, named in honor of the Norse and Germanic god of thunder and war, protector of gods and humans from danger.
Shirley Temple seems a tad stiff in her role. Perhaps this was intended as a consequence of a finishing school experience. She seems to be playing a girl of about 16, a few years younger than her actual age, who easily pouts when her clear romantic interest in a man is not immediately returned. John Agar, who plays her romantic interest, was in fact her husband at the time, but not for long. I was struck how much her face at this age resembled that of a young Jane Mansfield.

While I like "Fort Apache," I feel that there is too much horseplay in the movie as well as too much Shirley Temple-John Agar. Joanne Dru is far superior in a similar type of role in the follow-up "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." The screenplay to "Fort Apache" could have been tightened up dropping about 10 minutes and giving it a more streamlined result. "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" is a superior film because of a better handled script. Having said that, "Fort Apache" is still very entertaining. Its strength is in its opposing characters played by Henry Fonda and John Wayne. It's easy to focus on Fonda's martinet of a commander, but Wayne is excellent in his somewhat secondary role. He's almost an observer on equal footing with the supporting players and that generosity pays off with a very likeable, heroic character. I don't like "Fort Apache" enough to add it to my collection, as I have "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," but it's still a film to watch and enjoy.

A great classic western. Fun and interesting characters, easy to watch and enjoy, good guys and bad guys, clear cut heroes.