FORT APACHE (1948)

Billed as the John Wayne Cavalry Collection, this box set should have been titled the John Ford Cavalry Collection, since each movie is very much Ford's vision. The three films in the trilogy are Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande and each are excellent.

Rather than look at the box set as a whole I thought it better to split the article up into three posts, one for each movie. But before I look at Fort Apache I would like to make it clear that although the three films form a trilogy and indeed, they are known as the cavalry trilogy, they only represent a trilogy in the loosest sense. They share themes, that of why men have the need for civilisation, rather than characters and were never designed as a series of films, indeed the first two titles were made for RKO and the third, Rio Grande was a Universal Picture and Ford only made it because the studio insisted on a western before they would finance The Quiet Man.

Fort Apache is set during the American Apache Wars - Henry Fonda is Colonel Thursday, a stubborn text-book soldier who is at odds with the men below him. He is not happy to be posted to the remote outpost, feeling that as a Civil War hero he deserves more than to be fighting a bunch of mindless savages and not only great Indians like The Sioux but Apaches. However he soon learns that the Apache are a formidable enemy, indeed the greatest guerilla fighters the world has ever known. His second in command is Captain Kirby York (The Duke) and the two men couldn't be more different. Where Thursday disregards the Apache as savages, Captain York has a deep respect and sympathy for the native people.

"They were here long before us."


The character of Thursday seems to be based heavily on George Armstrong Custer - he is arrogant and brash. He foolishly and fatally underestimates his enemy. His death is pointless and brought on by his own arrogancence but Captain York covers up for the man allowing him, in death to be remembered as a hero.

The film wasn't made anywhere near the real Fort Apache but instead Ford used a sleight of hand and built his fort in his beloved Monument Valley. The film is very much Ford's and contains all his trademarks - gentle humour, romance and a brooding suspense leading to an all action climax. Much time is spent examining the wives as they struggle to make a comfortable home for their husbands. In Ford's westerns the battle the women fought were every bit as heroic as anything the men faced.

Fort Apache is a serious and intelligent western that deserves its place in genre history. Both Wayne and Fonda are superb and Ford visual flair was never better. An excellent film - a western classic that doesn't commit the sin of so many early westerns of being all one sided - here the serious issues surrounding the Indian wars are examined, nothing is set in stone and shades of grey run through the crisp black and white photography.

The DVD is a great remastered print with a booming 5.1 soundtrack - the battle scenes really shake those speakers and send the sound of gunshots to every corner of the room. In fact so crisp are the visuals that when viewed on a decent home cinema set up you're probably getting a better experience than movie fans had back in the day.