Friday, September 5, 2008

John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy"

Fort Apache (1948)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Rio Grande (1950)


"This is the West, sir. When the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend"

Chronologically, they're out of order. Two are in black and white. The third in glorious Oscar-winning color. Some characters appear in two of the three films. One man's story forms a character arc across two films, but you don't have to see both to know his story. They're all about honor. They're all about duty. They're all about family. They're all about the U.S. Cavalry during the move West. They're about carving civilization out of a rough-hewn wilderness.

And they're about the devastation of the Native people to achieve it. Ford would tackle the subject of the inherent racism behind that tragedy starting with The Searchers five years after the last of these films, then throughout the rest of his westerns. He touches on it in these films, in the duplicity of the white bureaucrats, military men and profiteers and you can see the crack forming in history as it occurred and History as it was presented in text...and the movies, as obvious as the crags etched into the location of all three films-the magnificent Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation.

And there is a fourth story not told in these films, but behind the scenes, of a film director bucking the studio system, and in so doing, casting a safety net to a civilization whose extinction was being chronicled, and often celebrated, in that system.


Fort Apache (John Ford, 1948)
At Fort Apache, a finger of civilization has poked through the wild west. For the U.S. Cavalry, the isolated post has become home to some of the families of the men, and so tensions are high--there is unrest among the Apaches, led by Cochise--and security is a priority. Brought in to lead the way is Civil War general Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda), an arrogant ideologue and martinet, with his own vision of the West that has nothing to do with reality.

Any similarity to George Armstrong Custer is strongly suggested—this at a time when the legend of Custer was still very much in keeping with his widow's intentions of keeping her husband in the most heroic of lights, aided and abetted by fawning newspapermen, nickel-biographers, covetous land-barons, and even the Anheuser-Busch company.*  Indeed, the "legend" of Custer would extend deep into the 1960's, decades after Ford's film.

Thursday takes no prisoners and no guff from his veteran cavalryman, Captain Kirby York (John Wayne), passed over for command of the fort, and who prefers a policy of negotiation. York doesn't blame the natives for the Apaches' anger, but, instead, the double-dealings of corrupt Indian agents. After watching years of uneasy relations shattered by Thursday's inflexibility, York must grit his teeth and watch as it leads to disaster, and then defend his superior officer's reputation for the good of the Corps.

Years later, in
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the dictum behind York's reactions were spelled out plainly: "When the Legend becomes Fact, Print the Legend." York does what he does for the good of the Cavalry, but by promoting the myth. he is complicit in the further hard-nosed approach exemplified by Thursday and the decimation of the tribes.  The film's triumphant huzzahs to the U.S. Cavalry have a tinge of melancholy to them, as York's words are matched by a shot of riding troops in a pane of glass—a reflection.





She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) Ford was encouraged by Wayne's performance in director Howard Hawks' Red River** to cast him as retiring Cavalry Officer Col. Nathan Brittles, a by-the-book cavalryman who bends rules until they almost snap. That includes personally negotiating with Cheyenne Chief Pony That Walks (Chief John Big Tree) to head off a bloody up-rising. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is full of Ford's hi-jinx and low humor, with squabbling lovers (Joanne Dru, John Agar and Harry Carey, Jr.), drunken sergeants,*** and the imminent retirement looming. Ford had worked in color before (Drums Along the Mohawk) and his set-pieces are bright contrasts to the red clay of the Monument Valley dirt. There is one unnervingly beautiful sequence of a night-time trek through Monument Valley in the middle of a lightning storm, done over the objections of the Technicolor Consultant, who subsequently won an Oscar for their "work."



Along with Carey,
McLaglen and other members of the Ford stock company, a new face appeared--Ben Johnson, who in 1971, would win an Academy Award for The Last Picture Show. He was a horse wrangler and rider in Ford's productions and proved invaluable on the set. So much so that Ford rewarded him with a speaking part as Trooper Tyree, the Unit's invaluable scout, the first of many roles Johnson would play for Ford.

And it contains one of my favorite Ford moments: Wayne 's Brittles confronting the Chief Pony That Walks , played by Seneca Chief John Big Tree. In a quavering, ancient voice and shouting his dialogue, the old man still holds his own against Wayne, who usually blew other actors off the screen. "Hallelujah, Nathan! I am a Christian!" he shouts in greeting. His appearance must have given strokes to the "suits" in Hollywood. A native! Doing a speaking part! And you can't understand him! Why couldn't Ford get
Anthony Quinn or something?****

And here, we interrupt to tell a tale. An aside, certainly, but on a subject more important than movies. There's a reason Ford consistently shot his Westerns in Monument Valley. Pictorially, it has a lot to do with a representation of vast, uncivilized space--rough-hewn ancient structures that show no sign of man, an unmarked slate. But, practically, it was more than that. Monument Valley sits square in the Four Corners on the Navajo Reservation. And to use that location, Ford had to pay the tribe. If he'd gone to Arches National Park a day's drive away, the money would have gone to the State of Utah. But, Monument Valley, the tribe.

On top of that, Ford and his production team used the Native's as extras, stuntmen, horsemen, consultants--money in the pockets of each tribesman. Those long lines of native riders beading the horizon in Ford westerns? All paid employees. The women and children that stuff the frames of village shots are not merely there for "color." They were all paid to get the tribe through a tough winter in one of the more inhospitable environments on the continent. And the Chief John Big Tree, though he may have had difficulty with his lines (and probably learned them phonetically) was paid the highest scale, merely for speaking lines in the script. There is a reason there is a John Ford tourist center at Monument Valley, and why he was made an honorary chief. Ford's Westerns saved more Indians than were represented to be killed. And his politically incorrect first suggestions of white duplicity in the "taming" of the West (which would culminate in his films
The Searchers and Cheyenne Autumn--in which he endeavored to make a movie about "The Trail of Tears") began to seep the true story behind the "shoot-em-up's" and "Cowboys-and-Injuns" pictures which were a staple of American entertainment.



Ford's color sense and composition has a Master's eye.


Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) To finance the third Cavalry film (after the $1.6 million budget of Yellow Ribbon), Ford turned to B-movie studio Republic Pictures. Ford yearned to make The Quiet Man there, but studio head Herbert Yates, with no confidence in the script, persuaded Ford to first make Rio Grande.

Rio Grande takes a look at the further career of John Wayne's Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (he's sprouted an "e" on the end of his name, for one thing). Estranged from his wife (
Maureen O'Hara), posted to the frontier to protect settlers from attacking Apaches, with inadequate forces to do the job, Yorke is feeling a lot of pressure, especially when Phil Sheridan asks him to cross into Mexico to confront the renegades where they're hiding. Then, on top of that, Yorke's son is stationed to his troop. Throughout the course of the movie, Yorke comes dangerously close to becoming the type of commander his old superior, Owen Thursday, was.

Ben Johnson returns as Trooper Tyree, as does Victor McLaglen as now Sgt. Major Quincannon. Harry Carey, Jr. plays another role entirely.

Ford made other western during this time period--
Three Godfathers, his "Christmas Western," with Wayne, "Dobe" Carey and Pedro Armendariz, and Wagonmaster about the Mormon trek to Utah, with Ward Bond, Carey and Ben Johnson. But Ford's next film with a Cavalry presence would be "The Searchers," in which, accompanied by a jaunty Irish tune, the heroes of this trilogy would be responsible for the murder of women and children, and one of the main characters would turn to the other and question them "What'd they kill her for? She didn't hurt nobody!"

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance a newspaperman tells Congressman Stoddard "This is the West, sir. When the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend," "becomes" in the sense of casting a better light on the Truth. Ford filmed his "Cavalry Trilogy" with that maxim in mind, and had even showed its employment in distorting History. Now, in the last part of his storied career, he would tear the Legend away to expose Truth, and show Americans in their entertainment, what was lost in winning the West.






* The beer giant commissioned a painting (below) that was distributed and hung in every saloon that carried their product.




* "I didn't know the dumb son-of-a-bitch could act!" he would remark to Howard Hawks.

** Played by Ford favorite, Victor McLaglen, whom Ford directed to a Best Actor Oscar for The Informer. McLaglen's character Sgt. Quincannon appears in the next Cavalry picture, Rio Grande, as well. There is a Sgt. Quincannon in Fort Apache, played by Dick Foran, rather than McLaglen. McLaglen plays the similar role of Sgt. Mulcahy in Fort Apache.


*** It was a common Hollywood practice to give the most prominent "foreign" role to white actors in make-up, and Ford was as much a victim of the practice as any director. In order to get his "Trail of Tears" epic Cheyenne Autumn made he was forced to use "name" stars such as Latinos Gilbert Roland, Dolores Del Rio, and Ricardo Montalban, and Italian Sal Mineo. Quinn, Mexican-American, has played Latino, Arab, Greek, Italian, Inuit, etc., etc.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

My compliments to whoever wrote the analysis of three of my favorite westerns. Much info I did not know. He might have given a nod to Ken Kurtis, however, a fine actor, but also blessed with a lovely voice. I was always struck by Ford's focus on the daily life of the soldiers and their families. It was such an inspired addition to the genre that I was led to include similar vignettes in my recent novel. Would that I could approach Ford's level.

rfb Napa said...

Should have credited the opening quote to the Jimmy Stewart dialogue from a reporter in The Man who Shot Liberty Valence...Attribution is crucial to credibility.
Thanks--Richard Bruns--Napa

"Yojimbo_5" said...

And actually reading the piece is crucial before you make a comment. The line is credited to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. So sorry you dismissed the piece before coming across it.
(And it's "Liberty ValaAnce..."

rfb Napa said...

ADDENDUM-- No need to reply. I'm gone from this site.

rfb Napa said...

I see you don't wish to air well-intentioned fair, and accurate, criticism. That tells me a whole lot more about your professional integrity. It's nice to have the power to shut off the voices of what you appear to see as opposition. I won't bother to share with you the five inaccuracies I've found so far in your narrative.

Unknown said...

When I came across this site, it was to enjoy another fan's take on movies that I really like. Napa, you came to it seemingly with the intention of displaying your superiority in all things filmish and grammatical. Don't try to pretend otherwise, it is obvious in your tone. "Attribution is crucial to credibility," well lah, dee dah! He gots big words! But Yojimbo, it would have been wiser to let Napa have his moment in the sun (okay, flashlight) and let his comment go. Sure, he was snarky, and superior (and needed to prove to us just how superior), but .... what the hell. Let it go. Unfortunately, as we see, Napa could not let it go even after he told us he was going to shun us for eternity. He comes back with, "I see you don't wish to air well-intentioned fair, and accurate, criticism. That tells me a whole lot more about your professional integrity. It's nice to have the power to shut off the voices of what you appear to see as opposition. I won't bother to share with you the five inaccuracies I've found so far in your narrative." See? His criticism was "fair and accurate" and "well intentioned." The snarky, superior tone was just for laughs. Now let's launch into a personal attack... upon you, Yojimbo, since it is clear you have no "professional integrity," and wish to "shut off" voices of opposition. Oh, you didn't, did you? You actually did allow the voice of opposition to oppose, didn't you? Yes, well, then, he got his fee-fees hurt when you did not accept his "fair and accurate and well intentioned" criticism. Had you said "You're right, Napa, thanks," the mole hill would not have developed into a mountain. So, fellas, can we agree that you both got off on the wrong foot, and get back to talking about what great movies John Ford bequeathed us?

"Yojimbo_5" said...

Thank you, Alex, for taking the time to write. I feel bad about that, but I appreciate the time and care you took to do so. I thought Mr. Napa was abandoning the site, as well...as he stated...(I guess all three of us were wrong and have that in common) nor would I blame him as I haven't written anything on this blog for a couple years now...so much for my "professional integrity."

Mr. Napa seems to be under the impression that this was anything more than a blog—it IS on "Blogger," after all—and seems to have confused me with a serious journalist. I have no idea where he could have gotten that impression. This blog was a hobby. It was not a business. It was meant to "download" a lot of stray movie thoughts in my mind about movies. It was not an entryway to a professional writing gig. I did it because I enjoy it.

I DID delete Napa's follow up to my reply because, frankly, I thought it didn't present him in the best light. He invested far more time in his reply than my two line response warranted. He objected to that deletion. Sorry. My bad. But it would have just added fuel to any replies that came along. As the administrator of this site, I have the right to do so and I exercise it, especially when it comes to spam (which Mr. Napa's comments were NOT, I should add).

I don't consider his initial comment to be "fair and accurate," however well-intentioned he thought they were. I DID attribute the quote to the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance further down in the piece—(personally this was one I thought "got away" from me and was never satisfied with. ...Valance is one of my favorites and a touchstone for anyone who appreciates Ford's work. Again, I believe he assumed I was a professional, not a hobbyist, and that I should adhere to "The Chicago Manual of Style." On this blog, I never have and never will (as I don't write it, anymore).

At any rate, it's been a couple of months (I check comments rarely) so it appears the dust might have settled on the mountain. Let the erosion to mole-hill status begin.

Again, thanks for taking all that time (and you, too, Napa. You spent a lot of time on that reply and for that, I shouldn't have deleted it)

Unknown said...

Well done. Bygones be bygones....

rfb Napa said...

I still don't my response to Yojimbo 5's lengthy comment. I'll take the high road and assume I posted it incorrectly. So....
R Bruns
Napa

Unknown said...

Who gives a sweet fuck? Why argue over petty shit? You all ruined a cool blog on The Duke.

Unknown said...

And you think that YOUR comment improved it? Really?