Col. Thursday was an unmitigated a$$hole the entire picture, and it kind of didn't lead anywhere. When he finally died, my reaction was "thank god!"
This is only PART of the film, but a rather important part.
You say it didn't lead anywhere, but by your own description…it actually did. He was a prick, he didn't listen to anyone's (numerous) warnings about Cochise, and it got him and several of his men (needlessly) killed.
Were you able to watch it uninterrupted? Seriously, I’m not being combative either, but try to see it from the perspective of the person who DOES agree with it receiving such high marks, and we can’t see why you “don’t get it.”
A person’s taste is just that…their own personal thing. I appreciate you coming here and asking about it, and taking a risk of being "flamed!"
Or it could simply be (I’m not trying to make presumptions, just illustrating a point) that you don‘t like westerns, or cavalry pictures, or b/w movies…or any number of things.
The reasons I like the Fort Apache are numerous, but I’ll try to keep it kind of brief:
John Wayne - A friend of the Indians, while trying to be a good soldier
The 3 Sergeants - A good representation of military life, and good comic relief
Ward Bond - He was great in every role he played, but especially this one
Victor McLaglen - One of the best character actors ever. Always fun to watch.
Pedro Armendáriz - Wayne’s sidekick on his search for Cochise, and one of the 3 Sergeants.
Shirley Temple - A good role for her, and she played it well
Henry Fonda - Peter Fonda said this was the way his dad was in real life. OUCH!
Jack Pennick - one of the 3 Sergeants that take care of the fort (and Mickey). Like McLaglen, Pennick was a long time member of the Fork Stock Company member.
Dick Foran - The third Sergeant. He did a great job on “Sweet Genevieve.”
George O’Brien - Collingwood. What a great role.
Anna Lee - Collingwood’s wife.
John Agar - Young Mickey O’Rourke. He was really good, and played well against John Wayne.
Finally, John Ford’s direction, and ability to capture the beauty of Monument Valley stand out magnificently in this film.
Well, there it is. I know it might not make you change your mind, but I appreciate you reading my post.
I don't act...I react. John Wayne
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i_dont_even_try
14 years ago
Also....
The Soundtrack - Nobody does military marches ("She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", "The Girl I Left Behind Me", etc.) like Ford did. I don't think anyone ever will. It's a time gone by.
Iconic Imagery - It seems like at least half the shots in the film are portraits.
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zorbear
14 years ago
I couldn't help noticing that jgroub seems to be asking why this movie is supposed to be an "important film"; i.e., why it's well thought of by film experts, film critics, historians, etc. There were only two "serious" replies, of which bari2525's was the most thorough. Both replies relied heavily on the thought that "it's a matter of personal taste" without talking about why the people who study film think it's a good example of a good film. Neither reply dealt with the picture from the point of view of a movie expert - okay, neither person WAS a movie expert, so that's to be expected.
My two cents: first, although I did take some film classes in college, I'm by no means an expert. I AM a fan of John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and John Ford. And I'll watch anything with Ward Bond in it. I love westerns, and I like humor in my serious movies. I live on TCM, so I see my favorite old movies without commercial interruption. And, yes, Monument Valley is beautiful.
All that said, I have to agree with jgroub. However, I'd love to hear from someone with more information explain this film to me. I think maybe I'd enjoy it more, if I understood what Ford was trying to do.
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garp15-1
14 years ago
Look at the end of the film again, when the reporters are talking to Col. York (Wayne) about the painting of "Thursday's Charge" I think they call it. York says it's accurate in every detail, knowing full well it wasn't true. Thursday & the men were killed because Thursday was an arrogant jackass.
This is an earlier version of the now famous line "when the fact becomes legend, print the legend" from Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance".
Fort Apache is possibly my favorite Wayne movie. Ask me in an hour and I'll likely say something else. But I find it very entertaining with humor, honor among the outpost troops, respect (of the Indians) by York, arrogance ala George Custer with Thursday. And it looks great.
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jgroub
14 years ago
bari, thanks for the response, and the lack of flame. Yes, the movie looked great, yes, it had nice music. I'll disagree about Shirley Temple, but that's more a matter of personal taste than anything. Sure, Ward Bond was f'g awesome, but he always is. And yeah, I really liked the comic relief. I like John Wayne playing second fiddle and getting slapped down. Didn't know that about Peter on John, but yikes! thanks for that.
But these things, and the things you mentioned, don't add up to being a great film. I need some character growth, I need some resolution. I dunno, I just didn't get that here. The bastard got what he deserved, and I was rooting for that ending all picture. And then he gets lionized to boot. No, not satisfying to me.
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
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Captain_Augustus_McCrae
14 years ago
One of the above posters mentioned Custer. This film is a sort of retelling of Ford's view of the Custer story, with the names and locale changed. Wayne's character knows that Col. Thursday was an unmitigated @$$, but allows the legend to overshadow the reality "For the Good of the Service".
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's living!!!"
Augustus McCrae
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dmariat55
14 years ago
It amazes me how you fellas totally miss the point of movies. Fort Apache is a masterpiece. It tells the story of what happened in the West after the civil war in the eyes of the Indian. One of the Indians, I think it was Rock Hudson, tells John Wayne how the white men killed the Indian women and children and old men. It's called genocide. Hitler was impressed by the way the settlers took care of the Indian problem.
Ford was brave to make this movie. He also had to disguise it like the Coens did in No Country for Old People. Ford made Henry Fonda seemed like an ass but the point is that he was in no way unique. There were thousands of commanding officers like him who slaughtered the Indians.
What should tip you off is Fonda's character's name is Col. Thursday. In other words he's very common just another day of the week.
Thursday saw the proof of what the Indian agent was doing, how he was mistreating the Indians leading to Cochise taking a band of them to Mexico. The Indians only wanted to have Thursday get rid of the Indian Agent and replace him with someone honest. It is a known fact that these Indian Agents throughout the West at the time were totally corrupt and caused great suffering to the Indians on their reservations.
What the movie is saying is that Col. Thursday was no fool, he saw how badly the Indians were mistreated but he just didn't care I guess because he considered them subhuman.
The best part is at the end when Wayne takes command. Thursday predicts it and he is right. Wayne becomes just as bad as Thursday was, out to kill the indians.
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nickm2
14 years ago
REALLY; how did the Indians treat the people who were there before them?????
NM
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dmariat55
14 years ago
"REALLY; how did the Indians treat the people who were there before them?????"
I don't get that question. The Indians are the native Americans.
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nickm2
14 years ago
The indians are 'nomads' on horseback; when they ran short of resources in one area they'd move or expand into another area---IF there were other indians in this new area, IF they could kill them, enslave them & drive them off they did so....if they couldn't or the same was done to them, they kept migrating...like I say, The Lakota came out of Canada & drove the Crow to Commanche territory; The Crow drove The Commanches to Apache Territories who, in turn drove the Apaches to the 'classic' Apache territories that is now Mexico, New Mexico & Arizona.
NM
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magolding
14 years ago
A lot of indian tribes were not nomadic. A lot of indian tribes were farmers. A lot of Idnian tribes thought they had lived where they lived "forever". But tribal areas often expanded or contracted and tribes sometimes migrated great distances.
For example, the Apaches in Rio Grande were, in the incident the movie is based on, actually Kickapoos, whose ancestors had lived in Illinois as recently as after the war of 1812, but who now lived in Mexico and raided in Texas for revenge and profit. There were some Mescalero and Lipan Apaches in the group.
But they were all called Apaches in the movie because everyone has heard of the fierce Apache. Nobody made movies with titles like "Fury of the Kickapoos", "Kickapoo Warpath", "Kickapoo War Smoke", "Kickapoo Drums", "Kickapoo Ambush" etc., because it would have sounded silly to most people. I'm not certain whether the Kickapoos should be glad or sad that their ancestors were not as notorious as the Apache.
Thee was a movie whose title I forget about the formation of a group of Seminole Indian Scouts in the West, based on a real unit. The Seminoles came from Florida, of course, and were formed by members of various southeastern tribes who migrated into the almost empty land of Florida.
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Captain_Augustus_McCrae
14 years ago
"A lot of indian tribes were not nomadic."
Not on the Great Plains or in most of the Southwest. These areas were very poorly suited for the farming techniques available to the Indians of the era. The Apaches could be said to be semi-nomadic, not because they farmed, but because they lived by plunder, warring against other, less warlike farming tribes. Even in places like Northern California, where tribes tended to stay in one general locale, they would move as the seasons changed, to take advantage of foodstuff availability. A tribe might be in the Sierra Nevada foothills in spring, to gather the edible acorns, then in summer move to the Central Valley wetlands to gather freshwater mussels, then on to the coast in autumn for serious fishing and hunting of marine mammals. Then back to the foothills to hunt deer and elk, and wait for the acorns to ripen. Repeat the cycle the following year. It's not really possible to generalize about the lifestyles of the Indians- so many differences.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's living!!!"
Augustus McCrae
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nickm2
14 years ago
mangolding, I digress but in all probability the weaker & more sedentary indians like the kickapoo, yaqui & pimas were probably frequently victimized by their more warlike brethren like the apaches...as for how to deal with it they could either move, die, make more powerful friends or hunker down & deal with it.
NM
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magolding
14 years ago
You have a highly exaggerate impression of genocide in the old west. Thursday was not like thousands of other commanding officers who slaughtered the Indians during that period.
In the army reorganization of 1866 there were fifty infantry regiments with about 36 officers each, or a total of about 1800, and ten cavalry regiments with about 41 officers each, or about 492 total, and 17 general officers, for a grand total of about 2311 officers at a time, leaving out the artillery officers and the staff officers. And the number was soon cut to half and remained at that level until the end of the Indians wars period.
So if each one of those officers commanded at least one slaughter, he would have had to command a slaughter without any subordinate officers under him, and thus would have commanded a very small group of enlisted men in that slaughter, who could have killed just a few Indians, hardly worth calling a slaughter.
Have you ever read any lists of engagements in the Indian wars and the descriptions of them? You will see page after page of minor skirmishes, with some regular sized skirmishes, and a few big skirmishes, before you come to any engagement big enough to be called a battle, or in which the casualties are large enough to talk about a possible "slaughter" of one side or the other.
And at teh end of For tApach York was not ridig out to kill g Geronimo's hostiles, but to defeat them. Defeating them involved kiling some, wounding, some, capturing some, chasing away some, and inflicting enough harm that the survivors would agree to surrender. Defeating is not exactly the same thing as slaughtering.
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