"All I Can See is the Flags"

I still remember the first time I saw "Fort Apache," on a summer afternoon in 1982, on Channel 11. I turned it on right at the part where Henry Fonda is leading the cavalry out of the fort to the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me." A grown-up Shirley Temple and Anna Lee (late of "General Hospital" fame) are watching from the parapets. Anna Lee says, in one of the great grammatical errors of cinema, "All I can see IS the flags." It didn't matter to me then or now. This movie is still a favorite of mine, but I think it's a film whose parts are greater than the whole. And it's the parts I remember: the stuck-up Boston Brahmin played by Henry Fonda asking Ward Bond's Irish sergeant how his son "happened to get into West Point"; John Wayne's Captain York telling Fonda: "If you saw them, sir, they weren't Apaches;" Fonda making his idiotic charge against the Apaches led by Cochise and being wiped out. But it's the end of the movie that is perhaps the most compelling part of what would otherwise be a conventional "shoot 'em up." Fonda is dead, and John Wayne is the new colonel. He's being questioned by a group of reporters, who are asking him about Fonda. An arrogant prude who destroyed his own troops for the sake of his own glory, in death Fonda has become a larger than life, the "hero of every schoolboy in America." Wayne reponds, with a weary, ambiguous look on his face: "No man died more gallantly, nor won more glory for his regiment." Another reporter describes a vastly inaccurate picture of the battle "with Apaches in their feathered war bonnets," which Wayne calls "correct in every detail." Why does he do it? It certainly wasn't to preserve a friend's memory, because Fonda had accused him of cowardice on the eve of the battle. This is one of the great mysteries of the film, and it's what makes the film so compelling. Did Wayne do it to save the honor of the army? Did he do it because the country needs heroes? Did he do it because he's now in Fonda's boots and knows the burden of command? There's no clearcut answer. When John Ford made this movie, he fashioned Fonda's character after George Armstrong Custer, and the movie is essentially a Fordian interpretation of Custer's Last Stand. Remember that at the time this movie was made, the late 1940's, Custer was still regarded as a great tragic hero (compare this movie with Errol Flynn's "They Died With Their Boots On" in 1941)and it was politically incorrect to criticize him. Miguel Inclan's Cochise is one of the most sympathetic cinematic depictions of a Native American in the 1940's, two years before Jeff Chandler's interpretation of the same role in "Broken Arrow." In short, this is a pretty good movie with a great ending, one that addresses the question of how history is made and how "great" historical figures are remembered. Give it a viewing!

"I am not a martinet."

This is the first in John Ford's cavalry trilogy. Henry Fonda plays an abrasive, spit-and-poliah officer, who needs to do things by the books, especially when dealing with the Indians. He's pitted against the more "human" John Wayne. Because of his refusal to bend, the outfit is caught in an Indian attack, and Fonda goes down fighting. His character is fairly well developed, and he is made "heroic" because of his willingness to live and die by what he thought was right: a soldier's code of conduct. Like all John Ford westerns, this picture is a mixture of action, corn, and scenery (beautiful Monument Valley) - and takes some getting used to. I admit to not being a big fan of his stuff. The sequel (SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON) is considered by many to be better, but I like this one better. Worth a watch.

Action Packed: John Ford's Disguised Take On Custer

John Ford Western's are always great because of the realism of the sets usually filmed on location and because John Ford's personal and factural interest in Western History. This movie is unique in that this movie is suppose to be John Ford's view of Custer and the Little Bighorn that is slyly disguised by placing the story in the southwest against the Apache instead of the Sioux (see the Custer Reader by Paul Hutton). Apparently, Ford sympathized more with Custer's regimental nemesis at the Little Bighorn Captain Benteen and Ford thought of Custer as an egotistical, glory seeking, martinet. Thus, you have your roles set as Henry Fonda plays a despotic Colonel Thursday as John Ford's Custer and Wayne plays the Benteen role as Captain York. The conflict between them adds to the overall tension of the movie as Thursday chronically makes poor decisions based on his lack of respect for the Apache as Wayne dutifully tries to advise him of their capabilities. Just like the real Custer and Benteen dispute, the two nearly come to a duel or blows as the grand finale erupts into a Custer like debacle as York defends the supply train as Benteen did with Reno at the LBH. At the very end, the surviving York pulls back from making a critical assessment of his commander, it seems that at the end, Ford pulled back from too much controversy in bashing the Custer legacy. But nevertheless, this is an exciting, realistic film. The only draw back is grown up Shirley Temple seeems too young for the romantic lead and the Custer (Thursday) and Benteen (York) similarity is much more complex historically and represents Ford's opinion. As always, there is a touch of timely humor in Ford's realistic story of the west.