Fort Apache ***** (1948, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, Pedro Armendariz, Ward Bond) – Classic Movie Review 2349

The opening 1948 film in director John Ford’s deservedly renowned and celebrated US Cavalry trilogy with star John Wayne also stars Henry Fonda as a bitter, arrogant, tough lieutenant colonel (based on General Custer) who is sent to a remote frontier outpost. There his practically inclined junior officer (Wayne) tries to teach him a few things about dealing with his men, his loved ones and the Apache.

The young, glory hungry Lt. Col. Owen Thursday has no respect for the local Native American tribe, which brings him into nasty conflict with the honourable veteran Captain Kirby York, who is placed under his command at the desolate Fort Apache. Thursday sees his new posting as a chance to claim his rightful military honour. Against advice, Thursday attempts to destroy the Apache chief Cochise (Miguel Inclán) by luring him across the border from Mexico.

Ford draws exceptional work from Fonda in an unusual, quite tricky role and it’s good to see Wayne having to stretch himself too. The movie is extremely well crafted and strikingly handsome, beautifully and imaginatively shot in black and white by cinematographer Archie Stout. He used infrared black-and-white film stock that records blue as black in many exterior scenes shot in the Monument Valley to enhance the clouds and the rock formations.

The stately pace suggests that Ford is setting out to achieve something grand and important, and so he does in one of his undisputed masterpieces, though perhaps cutting the time spent on the less interesting scenes of comedy and romance would have paced up the film profitably. Just 10 minutes cut from the long 127 minute running time would bring more of a sense of urgency, but the it’s just not that of movie.

John Agar is the weak link among the stars, making an unremarkable, quite feeble début as the suitor of Fonda’s daughter, played by 19-year-old Shirley Temple, Agar’s then new real-life wife. But then, to be fair, they have all the worst part of the film – the sentimental love interest – and no doubt doing their best with the dullish material. Indeed Ford frequently derided Temple’s acting and lack of education.

Still, overall, it’s an astonishingly strong, powerful and entertaining Western, maybe only just a notch down from Ford’s best work, as seen in the sequels, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande.

Also in the cast are Pedro Armendariz, Ward Bond, Irene Rich, George O’Brien, John Agar, Victor McLaglen, Guy Kibbee, Anna Lee, Grant Withers, Dick Foran, Jack Pennick, Mae Marsh, Francis Ford, Hank Worden, Frank Ferguson, William Forrest, Archie Twitchell, Mary Gordon and Cliff Clark.

Movita Castaneda, who plays Guadalupe, died on February 12 2015, aged 98. She was the second of Marlon Brando’s three wives, and also appeared in Mutiny on the Bounty opposite Clark Gable.

The screenplay is by Frank S. Nugent and James Warner Bellah, suggested by the story Massacre.

The Fort Apache fort, built for this production, was located at the Corriganville Movie Ranch in Simi Valley, California. It stood and was re-used for years. The ‘Apaches’ were really members of the Navajo tribe.

The plot is inspired by Custer’s Last Stand with Thursday as Custer and substituting Apaches for the Sioux. The cover-up by the survivors and the military of Thursday’s blunder is in line with Custer’s actions at Little Big Horn.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2349

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