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Fort Apache
Fort Apache
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Ford
Written by	Frank S. Nugent
Based on	"Massacre"; 1947 story The Saturday Evening Post; by James Warner Bellah
Produced by	Merian C. Cooper; John Ford;
Starring	John Wayne; Henry Fonda;
Cinematography	Archie Stout, ASC
Edited by	Jack Murray
Music by	Richard Hageman
Production; company	Argosy Pictures
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	March 27, 1948;
Running time	125 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2.1 million
Box office	$3 million (US rentals)

Fort Apache is a 1948 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda.^[4]^[5] The film was the first of the director's "Cavalry Trilogy" and was followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), both also starring Wayne. The screenplay was inspired by James Warner Bellah's short story "Massacre" (1947). The historical sources for "Massacre" have been attributed both to George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn and to the Fetterman Fight.^[6]

The film was one of the first to present an authentic and sympathetic view of Native Americans. In his review of the DVD release of Fort Apache in 2012, The New York Times movie critic Dave Kehr called it "one of the great achievements of classical American cinema, a film of immense complexity that never fails to reveal new shadings with each viewing" and "among the first 'pro-Indian' Westerns" in its portrayal of indigenous Americans with "sympathy and respect".^[7]

The film was awarded the Best Director and Best Cinematography awards by the Locarno International Film Festival of Locarno, Switzerland. Screenwriter Frank S. Nugent was nominated for best screenplay by the Writers Guild of America.

Plot

After the American Civil War, highly respected veteran Captain Kirby York is the acting commander at Fort Apache, an isolated U.S. cavalry post on the Arizona frontier. York commanded his own regiment during the Civil War and had learned the ways of the Apache. To universal surprise and disappointment, the regiment is given instead to Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday, a highly arrogant, acidic and abrasive martinet who had been brevetted a general during the Civil War for a valiant charge. A West Point graduate with unconcealed ambition, he regards the assignment as distasteful, unwarranted, and a serious derailment of his career.

His arrogance and overbearing egocentrism not only pervades his command but extends to his attitude towards the native Indians, whom he treats with condescension and complete disregard.

Accompanying widower Thursday is his daughter, Philadelphia. She becomes attracted to newly minted Second Lieutenant Michael O'Rourke, the son of highly regarded Sergeant Major Michael O'Rourke, the post's ranking non-commissioned officer. The elder O'Rourke had been a major in the Irish Brigade during the Civil War and won the Medal of Honor, entitling his son to enter West Point and be commissioned an officer. However, the class-conscious Thursday forbids his daughter to see someone whom he does not consider an equal and a gentleman worthy of her.

When Thursday is forced to deal with unrest among the Apache, led by Cochise, he ignores York's advice to treat the tribes with honor and to remedy problems on the reservation of malnutrition, alcoholism and decay caused by corrupt Apache agent Silas Meacham. Thursday's by-the-book rigidity prevents him from dealing with Meacham effectively, protecting him as an agent of the United States government despite his personal contempt for the man and his ways. Thursday then squanders an opportunity for peace with high-handed belligerence, and is openly disrespectful of Cochise to his face.

Using York, who has an honorable friendship with Cochise, as a cat's paw, Thursday tricks the Apache warriors back from Mexico into U.S. territory. Eager for glory and recognition, he plunges headlong into an obvious ambush despite York's urgent warnings that such a charge would be suicidal. Thursday relieves York and orders him to stay back with Lt. O'Rourke and protect the supply train, replacing him with Captain Sam Collingwood.

There is both charity and sage behind Thursday's seeming sleights, as he knows his command will wiped out...including Captain Collingwood and Sgt. O'Rourke. He cannot savage his beloved Philadelphia by killing off her intended husband too, and knows that of all the officers York is best qualified to lead upon his death. Wounded and separated from his men, he borrows York's horse to return to the doomed survivors and lead them to their last. Cochise spares York and soldiers who did not participate in the battle, in respect for York and to send a message to all who witnessed the slaughter, and the gesture, should understand.

Several years later, regimental commander Lieutenant Colonel Kirby York entertains a room full of Eastern correspondents. When asked if he has seen the famous painting depicting "Thursday's Charge", with the Apache massed brazenly in rows in war paint and feather bonnets awaiting Cavalry lances, he hews strictly to the fable crafted to cover Thursday's vainglorious and suicidal destruction of his command. Lying through his teeth (but not to himself) he says it is completely accurate. He then waxes on how those who died that day will never be forgotten as long as the regiment lives, and that he has an arduous campaign ahead to bring in Geronimo.

After briefly introducing his adjutant, Lt. O'Rourke, now married to Philadelphia, and calling their young son - Michael Thursday York O'Rourke - the "best soldier in the outfit", he mounts his horse and leads the regiment off after the Apaches.

Cast

John Wayne as Captain Kirby York
Henry Fonda as Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday
Shirley Temple as Miss Philadelphia Thursday
John Agar as Second Lieutenant Michael Shannon "Mickey" O'Rourke
Ward Bond as Sergeant Major Michael O'Rourke
Irene Rich as Mary O'Rourke
Anna Lee as Emily Collingwood
George O'Brien as Captain Sam Collingwood
Guy Kibbee as First Lieutenant Wilkens, regimental surgeon
Ray Hyke as Lieutenant Gates, regimental adjutant
Mae Marsh as Mrs. Gates
Victor McLaglen as Sergeant Festus Mulcahy
Dick Foran as Sergeant Quincannon
Pedro Armendáriz as Sergeant Beaufort
Jack Pennick as Sergeant Daniel Schattuck
Frank McGrath as Corporal Derice (uncredited)
Philip Kieffer as a Trooper (credited as Keiffer)
Fred Graham as a Trooper (uncredited)
Danny Borzage as recruit/accordionist (uncredited)
Hank Worden as Southern recruit
Miguel Inclán as Cochise
Grant Withers as Silas Meacham
Movita as Guadalupe, Colonel Thursday's household cook
Mary Gordon as Ma (Barmaid)
Cliff Clark as Stage Driver (uncredited)
Francis Ford as Fen (Stage Guard) (uncredited)
Frank Ferguson as Newspaperman (uncredited)
William Forrest as Reporter (uncredited)
Archie R. Twitchell as Reporter (uncredited)
Harry Tenbrook as Tom O'Feeney (uncredited)
Mickey Simpson as NCO at dance (uncredited)
Jane Crowley as Officer's Wife (uncredited)

Production

Filming

Some exteriors for the film's location shooting were shot in Monument Valley, Utah.^[8] The exteriors involving the fort itself and the renegade Apache agent's trading post were filmed at the Corriganville Movie Ranch, a former Simi Hills movie ranch that is now a regional park in the Simi Valley of Southern California.

Cast

At the time of filming, Shirley Temple and John Agar were married in real life.

Dick Foran sang the 1869 song "Sweet Genevieve" written by Henry Tucker.

Pedro Armendariz was a member of Mexico's Golden Age of Movies.

Reception

The film recorded a profit of $445,000^[9] (equivalent to $4,510,000 in 2023^[10]).

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in its 2008 AFI's 10 Top 10: Nominated Western film.^[11]

Other rankings

Fort Apache is commonly ranked among the most significant films of the "cowboy/western" genre, including:^[12]

"Top-Grossing Westerns from 1930–1972 and Plot Classification" per Wright, W. (1975) in Six guns and society: A structural study of the Western (pp. 30–32). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
#43 in the "Top 100 Westerns": Western Writers of America
#28 of 92 in "Chronological Listing of Major and Representative Western Films" (Cawelti, 1999)
#28 in "Chronological Listing of 100 Major and Representative Western Films" (Hausladen, 2003)
#19 in "Top 100 Western Films (1914–2001)" (Hoffmann, 2003)
#11 in "AFI’s 50 Western Nominees" (American Film Institute)
#25 in "100 Greatest Western Movies of All-time" (American Cowboy Magazine, 2008)

Additionally, the principal actors were ranked (for this and their other films):

#6 (Henry Fonda) and #13 (John Wayne) in the "AFI’s 50 Greatest American Screen Legends", American Film Institute

References

^ "Fort Apache: Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
^ Brady, Thomas F. (September 19, 1947). "U-I BUYS 2 STORIES TO BE MADE FILMS". New York Times. p. 27.
^ "Top Grossers of 1948". Variety. January 5, 1949. p. 46.
^ "Fort Apache". Miniature Reviews. Variety. March 10, 1948. p. 10.
^ Harrison's Reports film review; xxx.
^ Howze, William (2011). "Sources for Ford's "Cavalry trilogy": The Saturday Evening Post and James Warner Bellah". Section of Howze's doctoral dissertation.
^ Kehr, Dave (March 23, 2012). "How the West Was Filled With Loss". New York Times. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
^ SILBERNAGEL, BOB (November 4, 2019). "John Ford, Monument Valley helped define Western mythology". The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
^ Jewell, Richard; Harbin, Vernon (1982). The RKO Story. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House. p. 228.
^ Johnston, Louis; Williamson, Samuel H. (2023). "What Was the U.S. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved November 30, 2023. United States Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the MeasuringWorth series.
^ "AFI's 10 Top 10 Nominees" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 16, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2016.
^ Smith, Travis W. (2016). "Abstract". Place Images of the American West in Western Films (PDF) (doctoral dissertation). Kansas State University. Retrieved November 1, 2020.