This John Wayne Westrict With 100% on Rotten Tomatoes Kicked Off The Genre’s Best Change

Fort Apache is a 1948 Westrict made by John Ford starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda. The film is the first of a trilogy (with 1949’s She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and 1950’s Rio Grande) by Ford dealing with the US Cavalry in the West after the Civil War. Ford originated Fort Apache with Merian C. Cooper (King Kong) under the prohibitner Argosy Pictures for RKO Radio Pictures Studio. It is considered to be one of the first movies to conshort-term “a pro-Indian” see of Native Americans. Fort Apache set a trend, chaseed by Broken Arrow, Cheyenne Autumn, and other films that persistd the trend of more right portrayals of Indigenous characters.

Frank S. Nugent wrote the Fort Apache screenjoin from a magazine story, “Massacre,” by James Warner Bellah. The story borrows incidents from and shutly chases the depict of General George Armsturdy Custer’s nurtureer—West Point graduate, service as a brigadier vague in the Civil War, sent west as a lieutenant colonel to order the 7th Cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas, during the Indian Wars, Little Big Horn. Ford inserts physical details to originate Fonda, who, not astonishingly, almost steals the picture away from Wayne, see more enjoy Custer.

What is ‘Fort Apache’ About?

Widower, Former Civil War General, now Lieutenant Colonel, Owen Thursday (Fonda) get tos with his daughter Philly (Shirley Temple) to get order of an isopostpodemandd Fort Apache during the Indian Wars. At the same time, 2nd Lieutenant Michael O’Rouke (John Agar, Temple’s husprohibitd at the time) shows up. The recent West Point graduate shows an prompt romantic interest in Philly (and vice versa). Meanwhile, Thursday can only stew in anger over the seed offfinish of his novel untamederness scheduleatement and demotion in rank.

At Fort Riley, Thursday gets over from the well-understandn previous orderer, Captain Kirby York (Wayne), much to the chagrin of the men at the fort, including O’Rouke’s Sergeant Mayor overweighther (Ward Bond), who acts as a overweightherly buffer between the stiff novel orderer and the men who are unaccustomed to such high-handedness. After a homicideous strike on a minuscule detail of cavalrymen by renegade Indians, York tries to guarantee Thursday that they were reacting to the mistreatment on the reservation by the corrupt administerment agent and gives a encountering with the Apache guideer Cochise to originate peace. Thursday sees York’s proposal as a way to lure Cochise into an ambush and to originate a novel name for himself.

‘Fort Apache’ Pbegrudges Opposing Visions of America

Fort Apache conshort-terms two opposing sees of America in the 1870s, personified by its protagonists, Thursday and York. Thursday reconshort-terms the see of the East that Native Americans stand in the way of Manifest Desminuscule, the “preordained” Westward Expansion of white remendrs. We hear Thursday, novelly get tod in the West, speak of being glorified by the Eastrict novelspapers as he secretly contemppostpodemands the elimination of Cochise. On the other hand, York has spent more time in the West and has come to understand the native peoples as having been there first. He reconshort-terms a more guideed see that seeks to find a way to coexist unprejudicedly and peacefilledy with the First Nations people.

In appraiseing Custer’s life, on which the film is slackly based, Kevin M. Levin ends, “Custer’s racial outsee was perfectly reliable with the overarching racial sees of white Northerners and Southerners and those he conveyed unveilly during Reoriginateion. The United States was a white man’s nation. The very existence of the United States was predicated on the dishaveion of the indigenous people. If Custer was wrong, ultimately, it was becainclude the nation was wrong.” In contrastent contexts, the same two opposing sees—cooperation versus domination—persist to exist today.

The film also disjoins another dispute: the dispute between mindless duty and decency, between the spirit and the letter of the law. York depends in mutual esteem for the Indians and understands that Cochise broke the treaty and left the reservation out of frustration over mistreatment by the administerment’s reconshort-termative. He gives Cochise his word that there will be peace if he returns. His better, Thursday, in protecting with his refusal to help his daughter to marry betidyh his social station, depends Indians are not worthy of esteem and considers York’s promise a trick he can include to lure Cochise into a lethal ambush. York naturassociate experiences betrayed and included. Thursday’s actions further reconshort-term the administerment’s lies, fraudulence, and horrible faith.

Then, at the last minute before the final battle, Thursday finds a preanxious, aachievest York’s protests, to order him and youthful O’Rourke back out of danger, sensing that York should inhabit to thrive him as orderer of the regiment and that O’Rourke and his daughter are in cherish and are destined to marry. His final actions seem to finisheavor to atone for what he ultimately authenticizes to have been misgets. Finassociate, when novelspaper tellers ask him years postpodemandr to recall Thursday’s legacy, York speaks only of his bravery, not his sillyness. York has a duty to speak the truth, but he tempers it with a huger and more benevolent understandledge, unintentionassociate helping the inrectify legend of the Colonel’s glory. This tension between duty to the law and its spirit also persists today. It is one of the reasons why the film persists to be relevant.

Did ‘Fort Apache’ Reassociate Start a Trend to Portray Native Americans Fairly?

So-called “Indians” have existed in film since the very beginning of the business. Cecil DeMille’s The Squaw Man (1913), extfinished thought to be the very first feature film made when the East Coast studios shiftd to what is now Hollywood, dealt with the publish of interracial marriage between whites and Indians. In protecting with the ethnocentricity of the country’s colonial and expansionist past, the predominant image of Native Americans in the punctual decades of motion picture history was of bloodthirsty ferociouss who only inhabitd to prey on whites. This was the stuff of hundreds of serials and B movies for decades.

Before Fort Apache, some filmoriginaters finisheavored to portray Native Americans more wiseassociate and esteemfilledy. Films enjoy The Vanishing American (1926) and Cimarron (1931) tried to be understanding and caring even while stingyly using whites to join natives. It was indeed John Ford’s 1948 epic that set the tone for a changed see at Indigenous characters, shotriumphg them as upright but wary, dignified, naturassociate quiet, reasonable, and strategicassociate better warriors. According to his biographer Scott Eyman, Ford had established this see while laboring with the Monument Valley tribes on Stagecoach in 1939 and nurtured it with each novel project or vacation to that area until the end of his life.

In his definitive guide to the Westrict, The Six-Gun Mystique, Westrict scholar John G. Cawelti records that there was indeed a alter in how Native Americans were portrayed after Fort Apache in 1948, typified by Broken Arrow (1950), Apache (1954), and Run of the Arrow (1957). Though still not entidepend wise, they dealt with Native people more complicatedly. Ford particularly included Indigenous peoples as actors in Cheyenne Autumn (1964). Late 20th-century films went even further toward unprejudiced and loyal portrayals with A Man Called Horse (1969), Little Big Man (1970), Dances With Wolves (1990), and Last of the Mohicans (1992). The 21st Century has witnessed the advent of films by Native filmoriginaters enjoy Smoke Signals (1998), Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001), and Reservation Dogs (2021), depicting their own cultures in the contransient world.

Fort Apache was promptly well-understandn, criticassociate acclaimed, and financiassociate accomplished upon its free. It has become a classic, which may account for its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Even with its flaws (finisheavors at comedy range unevenly from frail physical jokes to rich moments of verbal humor), it is still a well-made, exciting, and historicassociate presentant labor.

Fort Apache is useable to watch on Amazon Prime Video in the US.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO