FORT APACHE (1948): John Ford confronts the Custer myth.

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]everyone and welcome to my channel where I talk about movies and the movie I want to talk about today comes from 1948.

[00:00:07]This is Fort Apache starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, Pedro Armenas directed by John Ford. This is the first of his cavalry trilogy which includes she wore a yellow ribbon and Rio Grande. Um and it's a story of a lieutenant colonel Thursday who is traveling from the east by stage coach.

[00:00:29]He is uh he is he believes he has been passed over. He's being somehow punished by s by being sent to this uh distant outpost where where he will just linger in obscurity. He he's a man who needs to find glory and he doesn't see any opportunity for glory here and he's very rigid um as far as regulations go.

[00:00:54]He's humanized a bit by by his daughter Philadelphia Thursday. We got some great names here and because he obviously loves his daughter very much, but other than that, he's a tough he's he's he is a tough cookie and he's going somewhere where he he really doesn't belong. He's going to a very tightknit community out in Fort in Fort Apache.

[00:01:20]Uh this is a uh this is a a community that relies on a sense of a protocol of rank. Rank is very important here. Uh but also a a community that has to adopt to the situation which which they are in which is much different than than what they might be experiencing the east. Now they're in the west. This is the manifest part of the story of the manifest destiny.

[00:01:51]And we see a lot of we see women here and we see the wives of the officers and the non-commissioned officers uh and and so when when Shirley Temple Philadelphia Thursday arrives, she doesn't know what to do. They quickly bring her into the fold, look after her.

[00:02:09]uh and this community is is also tied together by the rit by rituals and especially dances. Stances are very prominent in John Ford films and there's two here. Uh the second one is is is really um significant because Ford creates the march where uh this is at the non-commission officers uh dance in which the officers also attend and and they march in line as if they were if as if they were doing uh army marches. uh they start with one couple, they've gone on a te rectangular shaped uh march and then when they get to the starting point again, then the the second couple unites with the first couple so and so on till there's four couples um marching together uh which is very much emblematic of of the togetherness that that they have to feel and certainly they're they're in danger being here in Indian country and Coochis says left the reservation.

[00:03:16]So current Lieutenant Colonel Thursday is there to try to bring Coochis back to the reservation. Um he has no respect whatsoever. He views for for Coochis and the these are these these indigenous people are subhuman.

[00:03:33]They can't possibly uh be able to uh to uh deploy superior tactics be be to defeat the army uh in its great uh you know it's great ability uh and and and training but Colonel Thursday is up against guerrilla warfare here. And this really plays out this this kind of colonialism versus the indigenous people in the US particularly, but certainly in in countries all around the world in which in which the advanced society supposedly uh faces down the the indigenous people uh who don't have nearly the firepower that the colonial invaders have. Uh so Colonel Thursday believes well that that's the reason. Why are you afraid of coochis? Well uh John Wayne's character Colonel York he and his and his weather his his experienced troops they understand the the danger of coochis and he is a great tactician which Colonel Thursday just poo poos.

[00:04:49]So, uh, we get a long section. I got to mention it because there are things in John Ford films that that modern day audiences don't like. The broad comedy of new recruits, uh, who can't have to learn to march. And, uh, and then there's another yet another scene with them where they they have to learn to ride a horse. Historic truth of that was they would have learned all that before they were sent out to a distant uh cavalry outpost to fight uh to fight the Apaches. Um and then alcohol too, you know, four things alcoholism is is is is so funny. There's so much boozy humor in in you know in many of his films and but in in the midst of that we get the Henry Fonda John Wayne confrontations and these are terrific. John Wayne was a was a very underrated actor. Henry Fonda was a stage trained actor and of course Wayne was a movie star. You know he worked by instinct and all the B westerns that he made before uh in the 1930s before fire Ford hired him for stage coach which made him a star.

[00:06:01]these confrontations, these arguments about uh the reality of the situation versus this uh this idealized view uh of of himself uh in in Colonel th in Colonel Thursday because uh Colonel York John Wayne's character he has empathy for the Indians. understands how mistreated they've been especially through the Indian the agency of Indian Affairs I think it was called which was totally corrupt and they just so paternalistic and they they they sold rockgood whiskey and coochis says in one of the speeches you see coochis that you see coochis give in in the movie that he's making the men all drunks and and they selling shoddy goods they give them rifles that don't work. Um, and and Coisa's main gripe is, I'll come back to the reservation, but you got to get rid of that Indian agent.

[00:07:04]Fonda knows all understands the reality and is disgusted by the Indian nation, but he's a member of our our our government. He's a representative of our our government when Colonel York mistreats Meechum is the name. Very memorable character in this movie.

[00:07:22]So this sympathy for the Indians in 1948 was very unusual. I mean this was definitely uh uh and the film evokes General Kuster in Kuster's last stand. another story about a man who uh searches for glory in in fighting the Indians and um the so and coochis and and the Indians the film almost seems like it's on their side and for 1948 this is pretty unusual and Ford was often criticized by people like Tarantino who think that you know he just wanted he was a racist and just wanted to kill the Indians he might not have seen this movie.

[00:08:08]Did he see Fort Apache? Because this is a this you might even say this is a a cavalry movie that's that's pro- Indian 1948. Of course, in the 1950s, this sympathy for the Indian, the plight of the Indians and and our mistreatment of them uh gain gained some uh gain some truth within the community at large. And there were other movies that would too show the Indians in a uh in a sympathetic light. So So we are and well this is being filmed in Monument Valley and this is Ford's third movie in Monument Valley Stage Coach and um and the wider movie whose name whose name uh whose name escapes me at the at the moment.

[00:08:59]Uh, my darling Clementine.

[00:09:04]This these are these are vistas that were new to audiences. They're very familiar to us today because Ford and other movie directors made so many films set in Monument Valley. I was there 40 years ago. Believe me, even if you're familiar with it from the television ads and the movies, it's a place we're seeing is genuinely one of the most majestic sites I've ever seen. So it really adds to the uh to to the um the beauty of this film which was filmed in in infrared. So the the skies and clouds and the sky and u very very big contrast in the between the blacks and the whites. Um so and then we have probably the last 20 minutes of the film which is which is is pretty spectacular. Ford films this from a distance. Um, a lot of it is obscured by dust, but it has a great emotional impact here, especially in in the scenes with again with Fonda and Wayne. Um, then we get to Kota here and the Kota uh is is seems empty after what you've watched previously. It comes very quickly. It's very abruptly. uh it doesn't hold true to what the film this film almost two-hour film that we have seen it u it it basically um makes the case that we need heroes. So even though Colonel Thursday was incompetent and uh and he was no hero uh for sure but he was made a hero just as Kuster was made a hero. Kuster if you Kuster and they died with their boots on. He was glorified.

[00:10:55]He was had been glorified right after the battle. Little little big horn. But if you know anything about Kuster's life, his career, he was an egotistical uh he wasn't a dummy, but he would he was taking risks beyond any common sense. He too, like Colonel Thursday, searching for glory, but he was made a hero. Uh and uh so this Kusterp story we're seeing Ford's contradiction here in that he he he makes the case the film makes the case at least that we need heroes and if we have to lie about if we have to whitewash the hero and what he did uh so be it because it's made clear that the regiment and in inferring that the country at large uh needs heroes to form a national identity even though they're lies. The contradiction here is that while Ford seems to be telling us this, he's also showing us the actual truth of the matter.

[00:12:00]And again, the same way in in the man who shot Liberty Valance and th this is a jolt and you wonder is Ford serious?

[00:12:08]What what what does he really trying to say here? In the interviews, he says it very clearly, but I I'm not so sure. I don't think that Ford ever worked out many of the contradictions in his films.

[00:12:21]Of course, that's what makes them that's what that's what makes them interesting.

[00:12:29]Ford's greatness Ford's greatness uh certainly comes from uh these stories, the surrounding poetic vision of Ford, the poetic vision of our history.

[00:12:43]And um complicated.

[00:12:48]Excuse me. So Ford's career here um before the war he was the most prestigious uh film director in Hollywood won many academy several academy awards. How green was my valley?

[00:13:01]Grapes of breath the former young Mr. Lincoln uh highly influential around the world. Kurasawa uh you know you worshiped Ford as as did Orson Wells. So Orson Wells making Citizen Kane learning how to make a film. He studied you know he he emphasizes over and over that that Ford was the great director that he wanted to study as he was preparing Citizen Cane.

[00:13:28]Ford started his own company Argusy. He had worked for the studios and the big you know with Daryl Xanic and and Sam Goldwin and uh he wanted to be more independent after the war. Uh the war had scarred him. Uh and he wanted his dream project was the quiet man which was made about five years later. Um but his first film for this new production company Argusy was the fugitive with Henry Fondant.

[00:13:56]Big flop. He was his company was deeply in debt on the first movie. This was a big hit. He figured it would be a big hit. He made it for commercial reasons.

[00:14:06]Um, and Refonda uh his really his screen persona was molded with with John Ford and you know these iconic roles like uh Wyatt Herp and Tom Jode and Abraham Lincoln.

[00:14:23]But Bond didn't really like the movies.

[00:14:25]He wanted he saw himself as a stage actor. So right after this movie, at the peak of Honda's career, he spent six years on Broadway playing Mr. Roberts.

[00:14:37]Sort of movie career suicide in a way you would think. Uh and then when that run was over, he made he wanted to make the movie and he hired John Ford. They fought and two weeks into the shooting, Ford left the film. They never talked again. And Bond's career after that, I don't know. I I should have looked it up, but I I guess 12 Angry Men is is is is the most significant film that he made. But even there, that's not so much Henry. He Fonda is sort of part of the concept. 12 men is sort of a concept movie um with very predetermined type characterizations. Here here Fonda gives a very comp very uh complex performance here because uh there is a way that even Colonel York can admire his sense of duty.

[00:15:27]John Wayne unlike Fonda and Ford did not serve in the uh in World War II. So he was a star wasn't yet a superstar. Ford didn't think he was an actor. I don't know what he what he was seeing here.

[00:15:38]John Wayne is me. This is one of his best roles as in and his other two roles in in in the subsequent cavalry trilogy are also excellent. He would I think his next film was Red River and Ford said well you know that now I I can see Wayne is a pretty good actor but he's he's pretty terrific here. Of course in the 50s they would make films many films together and you know and the peak obviously being the searchers.

[00:16:09]Pedro Armanderas he's he's gets a starring uh credit here. He's in the top four great Mexican actor many John Ford films. He's terrific here. He is the go-between between Colonel uh York and Coochis and later Colonel Thursday and and Coochis. Uh he's he he plays a great interpreter, a big star in Mexico, if you're following my Bunwell series. Um Armadeas is the star of a couple of Bunwell film, Mexican films I haven't talked about yet. In fact, the the actor who plays Coochis is one of the stars of one of Uno's most famous films, Los Alvidos.

[00:16:52]Film, as I said, was a hit. Good reviews. Uh Bosley Kther, a famously grumpy movie critic of the uh of the New York Times. He praised it. Ford was really, you know, a very um prestigious director. uh he lost some of the prestige through the 50s because he was making all these westerns and even though westerners were popular with audience they didn't have the same kind of the same prestige uh that movies like the grapes of wrath or how green was my valley would have. So, uh, really interesting movie. I'd be curious to see, uh, some reactions to how we're to interpret that kod.

[00:17:37]And, uh, I will be covering I hopefully the the two other movies, uh, that Ford part of Ford's Calvary trilogy. Uh, and, uh, I'll probably go out of order. I'll do um, uh, Rio Granding next. Um, and then say she wore a yellow ribbon for the final one, which is was when Wayne is is an old veteran about to retire from the calvary. Okay. Thanks a lot for everybody who listened. I appreciate it.

[00:18:08]Comments are welcome. Take care.