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"FORT APACHE" (1948) Review
Between 1948 and 1950, director John Ford made three Westerns that many regard as his "cavalry trilogy". All three films centered on the U.S. Army Cavalry in the post-Civil War West. More importantly, all three movies were based upon short stories written by American Western author, James Warner Bellah.
The first film in Ford's "cavalry trilogy" was "FORT APACHE" released in 1948. Starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda, the movie was inspired by Bellah's 1947 Saturday Evening Post short story called "Massacre". Bellah used the Little Bighorn and Fetterman Fight battles as historical backdrop. "FORT APACHE" proved to be one of the first Hollywood films to portray a sympathetic view of Native Americans. This is surprising, considering that Bellah's view of the Native Americans in his story is not sympathetic and rather racist. For reasons I do not know, Ford decided to change the story's negative portrayal of the Apaches, via screenwriter Frank S. Nugent's script. Although Ford and Nugent did not focus upon how most of the other characters regarded the Apaches, they did spotlight on at least three of them - Captain Kirby York, Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Thursday, and Captain Sam Collingwood. Both Thursday and Collingwood seemed to share the same negative views of the Apaches, although the latter does not underestimate their combat skills. York seemed a lot more open-minded and sympathetic toward the Apaches' desire to maintain their lives in peace without the U.S. government breathing down their backs. In the case of "FORT APACHE", York's views seemed to have won out . . . for the moment.