Victor M.'s character of Sgt. Quincannon is the same character he played in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.....but John wayne's character is the same as in Fort Apache...although Victor is also in Fort Apache he plays another character...Ben Johnson's character is also the same one he played in She wore a yellow ribbon.....I would like to watch these films back to back...
shareConfusing, ins't it.
shareREALLY confusing, but at least now I can see why they are considered a "trilogy" (besides the Cavalry theme).
This is the only film I have left to watch in the series, I can't wait to check it out...the first two movies were excellent.
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The actors aren't playing the same characters in the 3 cavalry pictures - they merely share the same names. The timelines and stories do not connect.
"Wake me when we get to Purgatory."
See my post under "Trooper Travis Tyree".
shareThey are NOT the same characters.
On one film, Wayne's charachter is named York, on the other he is named YORKE. The same with the Top Sergeant. On one he likes to fight, on the other he lets others fight.
And there are different timelines and areas of service.
My take on this is that the three films are essentially three different "takes" on the same idea. There is a long and distinguished history of doing this in all art forms, but it's a rarity in the cinema.
For example, Van Gogh painted a vase of sunflowers several times, each one similar but subtly different.
Walt Whitman revised and updated the poems in "Leaves Of Grass" in several different editions.
Classical composers use the same themes in different works.
Jazz and rock musicians record several different arrangements of a song - and it is often interesting to hear them "back-to-back" on expanded CDs.
I always think of "Rio Grande" and "She Wore A Yellow" ribbon as "remixes" of "Fort Apache", each equally interesting. Some character names occur in two or more of the movies (Kirby York[e], Quincannon, Tyree), as do certain themes (youth vs. experience, the effect of army life on families, the shadow of the Civil War, etc.) and set-piece scenes (e.g. the riding training - one film has a scene with incompetent recruits, one has them as startlingly natural horsemen); even the music plays its part (the "Yellow Ribbon" tune used in "Apache", the serenading troopers, and so on).
The three should definitely be seen in rapid sequence to get the effect, which is clearly deliberate (unlike the unimaginative repetition used by some contemporary directors, simply because they lack ideas and are milking a commercial formula).
Ford was an auteur, and it shows.
The fictional date of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is 1876 according to the calendar (which oddly doesn't name the month) some time after the Little Bighorn on 25 June 1876.
Rio Grande opens 15 years, 2 months, and some days after the Shenandoah campaign (which was in October 1864 in real history) and thus probably in December 1879. The regiment prepares for a winter campaign which agrees. But there may be a time skip somewhere since the end appears to be dated in July, possibly in 1880.
Fort Apache happens sometime between 1865 and 1880, with the epilogue a few years afterwards.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is set at Fort Stark or Starke (like York or Yorke) somewhere near Kiowa territory, and thus probably in Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Indian Territory (Oklahoma) or northern Texas.
Rio Grande is set at Fort Stark or Starke which seems to be in southeastern New Mexico or the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, since they cross the Rio Grande to get to Mexico, and since Fort Bliss is a few days ride away and the real Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas.
It is unlikely the two forts are in the same place. Possibly old Fort Stark was been abandoned and new Fort Stark built tens or hundreds of miles away between 1876 and 1879. Possibly there is a Fort Stark and a Fort Starke, like York and Yorke. Possibly there are two separate forts with the same name, like Fort Kearney and Fort Phil Kearney named after uncle and nephew, or Fort Collins and Fort Caspar named after father and son.
Fort Apache is set at Fort Apache, Arizona.
Several characters wear caps with crossed sabers and the number 2 in both She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande. Thus the characters in both are members of the Second US Cavalry Regiment, stationed hundreds of miles from where it was actually stationed in 1876-1880.
Thus the relationships between the three movies are rather confusing and they could happen in alternate universes or in the same fictional universe.