Fort Apache (1948)

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Fort Apache (1948) – J. Ford

Monument Valley looks great (in B&W) in the first film in John Ford’s so-called “Cavalry” trilogy.  Henry Fonda plays an arrogant Colonel who arrives to take command of the regiment at the titular Fort and rubs everyone in the good-natured community the wrong way.  He removes an old friend of his wife’s from a leadership role, pushes troop leader John Wayne around, and tries to prevent his daughter (19-year-old Shirley Temple!) from dating a young lieutenant (John Agar, Temple’s real-life husband), the son of non-commissioned war hero Ward Bond.  Ford intersperses scenes of the community (dinners, dances) with comic relief (from drunkard Sergeant Victor McLaughlin and his mates) and the tense scenes with Fonda (there are no relaxed scenes with him).  Ultimately, when the Apaches, led by Cochise and Geronimo, escape their reservation to Mexico (after being exploited by the government-operated trading store proprietor), Wayne and Fonda disagree about how to best deal with the situation.  Fonda refuses to listen to reason and we are treated to an epic battle scene.  For what it’s worth, the portrayal of Native Americans is relatively benign, although Fonda spouts a bunch of negative stereotypes; since he is the bad guy (and Wayne opposes him on this ground), the stereotypes are theoretically rejected as well.  This probably wasn’t forceful enough to have any effect on the cinema-going audience of the time, however.  I’ve spent a lot of time avoiding John Ford’s westerns but they do have a certain warmth and sense of place.