Product: Fort Apache (Color Enhanced) [VHS] (1948)
Rating: 4.0
Contradicts the "John Wayne Westerns Demean Indians" Notion
This movie, whose setting is the post-Civil War west during the Indian Wars, features Shirley Temple as a teenager in love with one of the cavalry officers. It also repudiates those who accuse westerns in general, and John Wayne ones in particular, of necessarily reinforcing racist stereotypes about Indians.While many of the cavalrymen viewed Indians as violent, dishonorable savages, Captain York (John Wayne) saw the Apaches as a Nation entitled to fairness and respect. (This film was made in 1948, at a time when Indians were usually the bad guys.) When the cavalrymen condemned Chief Cochise for breaking a treaty by abandoning the Reservation, Captain York understood, and defended, this as an understandable reaction to a local dealer who was corrupting the Indians with worthless trinkets and alcohol (and debauched alcohol at that), steadily converting them into a nation of drunks. Captain York wanted to live in peace with the Indians.This movie is also a tale of military loyalty. Although Commander Thursday was unfair to Captain York, and had led the men (and himself) into a foolish and disastrous combat encounter with the Indians, Captain York praises his fallen leader in front of the press.