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| Cowboys and Indians in battle and fresh-faced romance is promised on this colorful poster for John Ford's Fort Apache |
After the American Civil War, Lieutenant Colonel Thursday, an ambitious and arrogant war-time general, leads his regiment to a massacre of Apache Indians, to the chagrin of Captain York, who has experience with the Indians.
Fort Apache is written by Frank S. Nugent (The Searchers (1956)), based on the short story Massacre (1947) by James Warner Bellah (The Sons of Cain (1928)), and directed by Mainer master filmmaker John Ford (Mogambo (1953)). It is a long but intriguing film starring a gruff Henry Fonda (There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)) as Thursday and an exquisitely diplomatic John Wayne (Jet Pilot (1957)) as York, among other great actors.
Drunken soldiers seem to have infiltrated a good part of Fort Apache. It has a good story and dialog and gives an interesting look into the traditional lifestyle and events of a part of American history.
Watch TCM's Ben Mankiewicz's intro and outro for the film here
Cost: 2.1 mil. $
Box office: 3 mil. $ (North American rentals only)
= Uncertain (but likely at a box office success)
[Fort Apache premiered 27 March (Arizona) and runs 125 minutes. It is the first film in what would become known as Ford's Cavalry Trilogy, which also contains She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950). The historical sources for Bellah's story were George Armstrong Custer's Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fetterman Fight, a 1866 event in which 81 US soldiers were killed in an Indian ambush. Fonda, Wayne and Shirley Temple were reportedly each paid 100k $ for their performances, while Victor McLaglen got 75k $. Shooting took place in Utah, Arizona and California from July - October 1947. It is not possible to know the film's real theatrical status without its international box office receipts known, but since American westerns were popular, not least in Europe, at the time, it is likely that Fort Apache was at least a box office success. It enjoyed a reported profit of 445k $, which is in line with this assumption. It is also notable for being among the first major US westerns to show a sympathetic view of the Native Americans. Ford returned with 3 Godfathers (1948). Fonda's career was in a slump, and he returned as an uncredited nightclub waiter in Jigsaw (1949), while Wayne returned in grand style in Red River (1948). Fort Apache is fresh at 100 % with an 8.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Fort Apache?
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