Fort Apache: John Ford

Fort Apache was the first film in John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy, a series of films that focused on the U.S. Cavalry in the mythical Old West.  The other two would be the criminally underrated She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and the surprisingly overrated Rio Grande (1950).  All three would also star John Wayne. In this first film, he plays Captain Kirby York, a cavalry officer operating out of the eponymous Fort Apache, a cavalry post in the middle of nowhere.  But the film doesn't focus on Captain York. Instead, Ford focuses his camera primarily on Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday, played by Henry Fonda.  Thursday is sent to Fort Apache in order to serve as its new commander. However, despite having experience as a general in the Civil War, he is fool-hardy, arrogant, and full of himself.  His actions lead to the slaughter of most of his troops against a force of Chiricahua Apache.  It isn't until near the end of the film when the massacre takes place that the audience realizes that Fort Apache is a metaphor for the Battle of Little Bighorn and Custer's Last Stand.  The reason is that much of the film is devoted to that most central theme in John Ford's work: family. Thursday's daughter, Philadelphia (played by an astonishingly beautiful all-grown up Shirley Temple), falls in love with Second Lieutenant Michael Shannon O'Rourke.  Despite Michael's father receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions as a major in the Irish Brigade during the Civil War and therefore being allowed to study at West Point, Thursday refuses to let him court his daughter. Despite Michael's father's legacy, Thursday considers him to be of a lower class and therefore "unworthy" of his daughter. It is fascinating to watch how Ford mixes Thursday's duties as a soldier and responsibilities as a father and how his stances towards both leads to his downfall.  Fort Apache is a magnificent film that is stunning in scale, heart-breaking in emotion, and rich in subtext.

8/10