Le Massacre de Fort-Apache

Director John Ford's first entry in his cavalry trilogy is this excellent film about life on a military outpost far from the glamorous theaters of the Indian Wars on the northern plains. The film touches on character development of the officers and enlisted men on the post, family relationships and the class distinctions among the military social order. Henry Fonda is great as a bitter, unhappy colonel who feels unappreciated by the military hierarchy and is displeased by his assignment to the isolated desert areas. John Wayne gives the film just the right balance as a captain who looks out for his men and knows Indians. Ford has his regular cast on board for the film, and John Agar and Shirley Temple handle the romantic clinches. The pace is slowed somewhat by comedy bits that add nothing to the film's substance. The black and white camera work is stunning and the music is reflective and melancholy.

An American Western; A story about an arrogant and stubborn Civil War hero Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday who arrives in Arizona to assume command of the Fort Apache outpost and clashes with level-headed Captain Kirby York. This is the first of three remarkable films director John Ford made about the United States Cavalry fighting Apache, Sioux, and Cheyenne. This film deals with topics such as leadership, responsibility, heroism, and legend, and one of the first films to present a more authentic and sympathetic view of Native Americans. It is characterised by a superb example of military academy officer stiffness and a martinet approach to soldiering; there is further interest is in his meeting a more organic Western community at the isolated outpost. The character, Lt. Col. Owen Thursday, was inspired by General George Armstrong Custer and his ill-fated stand at Little Big Horn. Immaculate and painstaking detail was given to the story's period and setting. Henry Fonda and John Wayne gave the drama vigour. Ford's direction achieved broad scope, employing a non-linear narrative using digressions from the main storyline to help produce the atmosphere of a military outpost, making the main theme about moral ambiguity in warfare powerful.

Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda) travels to Fort Apache with his daughter Philadelphia (Shirley Temple) to take over command. Captain Kirby York (John Wayne) is disappointed as he expected to be the new commander. Philadelphia falls for young soldier Shannon O'Rourke despite the disapproval of her class-obsessed father. The Apache are on the war path five years after the peace treaty signed by Cochise. Due to alcoholism and starvation, Cochise had broken the treaty and left the reservation for Mexico.

This is an old style western from legendary director John Ford. Henry Fonda is somewhat miscast as the hard-headed, arrogant commander. John Wayne is the heroic one with the moral high ground. It may be better to switch the two leads. While John Wayne can be either, I don't see Fonda that way. As for the Apache, at least Cochise is played by a Mexican and the natives are shown as proud people. The first half is a bit slow. It has the old western humor and the first battle happens only at the halfway point. The most notable aspect is that the final battle has the sides switched from their standard roles. There is an obvious allusion to a historical event. It has something to say about the glorification of war. This is a western epic.

Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Thursday arrives at a frontier fort to take up his new command. His harsh, unbending philosophy of soldiering creates something of a stir in the regiment. His pretty daughter Philadelphia causes a rather different commotion.

The headstrong commander refuses to listen to the advice of his loyal captain, Kirby York, who knows frontier life and enjoys a rapport with the indian chiefs. The two officers are both strong characters, and their differing ideas inevitably lead to a clash.

Cochise and his braves are willing to accommodate the white man so long as their concerns are handled with diplomacy. Unfortunately, the high-handed approach of Lieutenant-Colonel Thursday cause relations to deteriorate, and conflict ensues.

In the course of the 1940's and 50's, director John Ford returned repeatedly to this subject-matter, John Wayne in Monument Valley with the US cavalry, fighting redskins and singing Irish folksongs. The stirring anthem in this movie is "The Girl I Left Behind Me", sung as the regiment rides out in full panoply to meet Cochise - although "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" gets an airing, too.

The cavalry regiment itself is a protagonist in the story, regarded as a living entity by its members. When Captain York is promoted to Colonel and commands the regiment, he makes a powerful speech stressing the continuity and tradition which have made the regiment great. The sense of hierarchy is strong. This is a world of order in which army regulations govern even the way an officer presents his calling-card. Soldiers can quote the regulations by heart. This well-regulated military force will, we feel, impose civilisation on this wild frontier.

Examples of the regiment's rigid code keep recurring. The NCOs' dance has its own elaborate protocol, which not even Colonel Thursday dares to flout. Feelings over the O'Rourke marriage reach boiling-point, but everyone adheres to the rules of military courtesy. Washington's Birthday is celebrated as a regimental occasion. The Irish sergeants are all related by blood and marriage, and as their exuberant fraternal greetings subside, military discipline asserts itself effortlessly.

"I'm not a martinet," protests Colonel Thursday, the most extreme martinet imaginable. He is inflexible in his enforcement of the military code, and too stubborn and wrongheaded to listen to the advice of his officers, who are experienced frontier campaigners. He completely misses the presence of Cochise's war party because he has no combat experience and doesn't know to watch the skyline for dust clouds. In addition, Thursday is a terrible snob. He calls young Michael O'Rourke a 'savage' for a perceived laxity of discipline, and sets his face against the marriage of Michael and Philadelphia because of "the barrier between your class and mine". He is dismayed that the son of a sergeant should have passed through West Point, and needlessly offends Cochise by talking down to him.

And yet even Owen Thursday has a human side. We gather that there is some personal secret between him and Captain Collingwood, and we almost smile when the armchair collapses under him. Most tellingly, Thursday returns to the beleaguered redoubt after he has been rescued. He redeems himself by rejoining his soldiers in the thick of the fighting.

When young Philadelphia Thursday (Shirley Temple) studies Michael O'Rourke in her purse mirror, we know that these two will be the love interest. Also, as this incident illustrates, the womenfolk of Fort Apache tend to run the show in this masculine enclave. The Thursday residence is somewhat joyless, especially when compared with Aunt Emily's cosy quarters. The women brush aside the colonel's seniority and call in Mrs. O'Rourke to refurnish the place. In one of the film's good jokes, no fewer than eight Mrs. O'Rourkes answer the call. There is a touching scene when the regiment moves out and the women are left together. Mrs. Collingwood is torn, because her husband has his safe posting back east and needn't go into battle, but she knows how important it is for him to prove his courage. The womenfolk urge her to call him back, but she reluctantly allows him to ride out.

John Ford laced many of his films with Irish humour, and "Fort Apache" is no exception. The ubiquitous Victor McLaglen plays Sergeant Festus Mulcahy, and he and the O'Rourkes run the fort - that is, whenever they are not in the jailhouse on charges of drinking and brawling. Outrageously, Mulcahy promotes a raw recruit to corporal, simply because he's Irish. Quincannon virtually lives in the jailhouse, but he has a fine tenor voice, so he is released from custody in order to serenade the young lovers with his rendition of "Genevieve". When the dishonest trader Meacham has his whisky stock confiscated and marked for destruction, the sad faces of the sergeants make a comical picture, and the subsequent 'destruction' is even funnier.

Ford is a master of composition. York rides out to parley with Cochise and is engrossed in dialogue, leaving Thursday stranded and excluded. We hear the thunder of hooves offscreen before we see the charge, and its impact is magnified accordingly. In the sequence where York and Beaufort ride to negotiate with Cochise, the screen is filled with stunning images of rock and sky. The charging cavalry are cleverly 'lost' in their own dust, which closes behind them like a curtain, ending the scene.

Wayne is curiously subdued in this film. This is partly because he plays a conscientious subordinate, and partly because the confrontation with Fonda is eclipsed by other plot developments.

John Wayne and Henry Fonda are iconic actors, and you have a tendency to know what sort of characters to expect from them. "Fort Apache" is a good movie, but what makes it really interesting to watch is that both Wayne and Fonda are cast a little bit against type in this. That's a bit jarring, and it forces you to watch, because you don't know exactly what to expect from them as the movie goes on. For a western that has surprisingly little action (the requisite "cowboys and Indians scene comes only in the last half hour) the performances from these two alone make this worth watching.

Fort Apache is a lonely US army outpost in the years after the Civil War. Nothing much happens there, and it's not a particularly prestigious assignment. The officers and men are comfortable and unchallenged under the command of Wayne's Captain York. Things change when Fonda's Col. Thursday shows up to assume command. Thursday is a bitter character. He thinks he's better than Fort Apache, and he resents being assigned to the command. You get the impression that he was a well regarded Union officer in the Civil War who just got overlooked in peacetime. But he's an officer, and Fort Apache is his assignment and he's determined to make it the best outfit in the US Army. No more comfortable outpost. The men wear proper uniforms, they drill, they train. Thursday's awkward in the command. Fort Apache is a close knit post, and he just doesn't fit in. His interactions with the soldiers and other officers are stiff and formal. Wayne's relaxed York and Fonda's by the book Thursday make this an interesting character study more than a western for the most part.

For all his attention to detail, though, Thursday has a basic problem: he yearns for glory, and he's not especially competent. Given the chance he orders his men to attack a group of Apaches returning from Mexico who've been promised by York that they could negotiate. But Thursday wants to beat them in battle and make his name, over York's protests. Not surprisingly, the end result is not unlike Custer's Last Stand.

This is a character study, and the characters are strong. It's not only Wayne and Fonda. There are other good performances in this as well. I was quite taken with the very pretty 20 year old Shirley Temple as Thursday's daughter. Interestingly, her love interest in the movie is played by John Agar, her real life husband at the time. Ward Bond was also very good as Sgt. Maj. O' Rourke. The battle scenes are restricted to the last half hour or so, and they serve primarily to show Thursday making blunders and rejecting the advice of those who know the Apache better than he does. The last scene of the movie is the classic example of a manufactured hero. Killed by the Apache after his own incompetence doomed him, Thursday is turned into a gallant national hero. York assumes command of Fort Apache, but the portrait of Thursday hangs over him. Those we recognize as heroes aren't always the real heroes apparently.

It's a well done movie. If you're expecting a traditional cowboy and Indian shoot out, you won't find it here. BUt it has a few humorous moments, and if you're looking for a solid, character driven western featuring two very good actors, Fort Apache will definitely satisfy. (7/10)