Product: Fort Apache (Color Enhanced) [VHS] (1948)
Rating: 5.0
As True Now As Then
Back in my Army days ("When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth") it was a common belief among many, if not most, of us laboring for the cause in green fatigues, that every "shavetail" 2nd lieutenant who ever put a pair of gold bars on his shoulders or an "L.T." clip on his collar, should be required to watch John Ford's "Fort Apache" before he drew his first duty assignment...and should be also required to write an essay on what it meant. Same thing, we all consensed, should apply to every officer being promoted to a higher rank, right on up the scale. The reason for this, we felt, was that everyone "moving up" needed to always be reminded that "The Book" (i.e. military regs, tactics, etc.) was only truly workable as a GENERAL GUIDEand was not a foolproof blueprint for micro-managing warfare (or LIFE) on a day by day basis. All too often, obsessively going "by the book"...and ignoring all contrary circumstances around you...will land you in a "heap o' trouble".And this by-the-book (or "Company S.O.P.") "mania" is a nuisance factor that often bedevils people to this very day in all walks of life---from hospital staffs to office staffs to restaurant workers to all manner of others---where "the book" both intervenes and interferes with a practical "real world" effort at "getting the job done". All to often 'the book" iscompiled by "executive" types who have nothing better to do than sit around and make up silly, unrealistic, and impractical rules and regulations (most of them...with regard to consequential "spill-over effects"...not very well thought out at all) that OTHER people have to TRY and make workable."Fort Apache" tells the story of a "Book Soldier", Henry Fonda's "Col. Owen Thursday", a by-the-numbers martinet who has come to the Arizona frontier with his head full of Von Clausewitz, Sun Tsu, Alexander and Bonaparte , and West Pointconcepts of "pinchers" and "envelopments". He is an arrogant elitist who views American Indians as crude, unsophisticated savages and who eyes their capabilities as fighting men withscorn and dismissive disregard.John Wayne plays "Captain Kirby York", Fort Apache's executive officer behind Fonda, and the leader of a cadre of veteran officers and NCOs who KNOW the territory and KNOW their adversaries, the Apaches....know them WELL ENOUGH, in fact, toRESPECT them. AND to account for their strengths and capabilities in dealing with them.All this knowledge and "feel" for the Apaches means nothing to Thursday when he comes swaggering in, and he takes no time in letting everyone know everything will henceforth be done HIS way. The garrison is troubled and uneasy about "His" way, but they have no option but to follow his lead. He IS the colonel.York tries to reason with Thursday but gets nowhere. He even gets used most egregiously (and dishonorably) by Thursday in luring the legendary Cochise over the border from Mexico into U.S. territory. There seems to be no ploy the arrogant colonel won't use in his quest for promotion and prestige within the army.Thursday gets HIS comeuppence in the end...but, unfortunately, he makes a lot of other GOOD men pay the ultimate price for his own incompetence and ineptitude along with him. In many ways the Thursday character is a bit of a take-off on George Custer, although Thursday's demise is based more on the Fetterman Massacre of 1866 rather than on Little Big Horn.Ford's direction is sure-handed in this, and the performances of John Wayne and Henry Fonda are superb. The black & white cinematography is excellent and the jaunty use of 19th century cavalry music...particularly "The Girl I Left Behind Me"...is enough to get one's head nodding and toes tapping whenever the band stikes up. "Fort Apache" may be, overall, the best of the famous "Cavalry Trilogy" , with "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" coming in a VERY close second behind it. "Rio Grande" is not a klunker, either, by a long shot...but doesn't really have the sheer power of the first two. And the only reason this trilogy is not a "Quartet" is that "The Horse Soldiers" is a "Southern", rather than a "western", and no Indians are involved in it.(And, note: if you like this rip-roaring cavalry stuff, you also need to check out Errol Flynn's "They Died With Their Boots On" and "Santa Fe Trail")."Fort Apache" should have been DVD-available much earlier than now, but it IS here at last, so lets all enjoy this marvelous piece of Americana.