And what a fall it was…

Cheyenne Autumn (1964) dir. by John Ford, w/ Richard Widmark (Capt. Thomas Archer), Carroll Baker (Deborah Wright), Sal Mineo (Red Shirt), Ricardo Montalban (Little Wolf), Jimmy Stewart (Wyatt Earp), Arthur Kennedy (Doc Holliday).

This film is probably John Ford’s strongest condemnation of the racism behind the United States’ policy of relocation of the native tribes.  It is clear that the Cheyenne, who abided by the terms set for their relocation were rewarded with terrible land which could not support them.  When they left the reservation to return to their areas in the North, they were pursued by the U.S. Cavalry.  Widmark plays an officer who is disgusted by the two-faced positions of his government and the clear injustice in the treatment of the Cheyenne.  Carroll Baker plays a Quaker school marm who teaches the Cheyenne children and follows them as they head north.  Ricardo Montalban plays the war leader of the Cheyenne, who has had it with the doublespeak of the government, and Sal Mineo plays a hotheaded young warrior, who is more than happy to begin shooting at the army, even when such action further puts the Cheyenne at peril.

Most striking in the film, to me, was the portrayal of the Cheyenne as justified when they break loose from a fort, with many Cheyenne and soldiers killed in the break-out.  That the Cheyenne were justified is not in doubt, but I found it remarkable that a Hollywood film takes the part of the red man against the white man so strongly. 

A strange scene is the Battle of Dodge, which is played almost as slapstick with Jimmy Stewart’s Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy’s Doc Holliday fleeing in a one horse cart as fast as they can from the battle.  Given Henry Fonda’s portrayal of Earp as a relatively young man (late 30s) in Tombstone in Ford’s My Darling Clementine, it is strange to see Stewart playing Earp as a man in his 50s in Dodge City (the start of Earp’s career as a lawman).  And the slapstick quality of the running townspeople was very strange and out of place.

Drum boogie…

Drums along the Mohawk (1939), dir. by John Ford, w/ Claudette Colbert (Lana), Henry Fonda (Gilbert Martin), Edna Mae Oliver (Mrs. McKlennar), John Carradine (Caldwell), Ward Bond (Adam Hartman).

A pretty enough film — this may be Ford’s first color film.  Done in 1939, it has the same technicolor wonder that The Adventures of Robin Hood has.  In this film, Henry Fonda plays a young man who has just gotten married and heads upstate from Albany with his young bride — the year is 1776, and the British have incited the native tribes in the area to join them in putting down the revolution.

The plot is fairly conventional, but the color is outstanding (and some of the actors are wearing colors that were not available to our founding fathers).  There is nothing here that sets Fonda’s performance apart, unlike his performance as Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln or as Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine, where his performance is quite memorable.  Likewise Claudette Colbert does not stand out — her one stand out scene is one involving hysterics, where she seems to be ACTING.  Edna Mae Oliver does a great job in a typical role for her — the crotchety, but wise, and ultimately sympathetic old woman.  John Carradine does a nice turn as the villain in the piece (complete with eyepatch) —  the British captain, Caldwell. 

The scene of Lana’s  hysteria is remarkable in one respect — it is the appearance of a friendly Native American that sets her off, and she displays racism, even if she overcomes it.  This is a common theme in Ford films.  He seems genuinely to have disliked racism and does call attention to it in this film.

This film didn’t quite take flight…

The Wings of Eagles (1957), dir. John Ford, w/ John Wayne (Frank “Spig” Wead), Dan Dailey (“Jughead” Carson), Maureen O’Hara (Min Wead), Ward Bond (John Dodge)

I know that some find this film a hidden treasure of John Ford’s — I found it rather disappointing.  The film is a biopic of Frank Wead, a Navy Commander and flyer, who, after suffering a bad fall, must battle his way back from near total paralysis, and goes to work in Hollywood as a consultant and author of films dealing with the Navy and aviation. 

There are some peculiar aspects of the film — we see “Spig” as a relatively young man, and the middle-aged John Wayne looks just as middle-aged as ever.  In addition, the opening scenes show Wead at the time of WWI, but costumes and cars are not age-appropriate.  And there is a tendency in Ford films, at times, to go slapstick.  In this film, when the Army and Navy get together, they engage in a food fight and then a real fight, followed by the arrival of the police, and a dash down the hall, straight into a pool.  I think we are supposed to find all this charming, as do the older Navy and Army people who barely conceal a smile over these antics — I just found them stupid.  There is also a great emphasis in the film on drinking. 

Wead’s battle with paralysis is quite impressive and John Wayne’s performance, with limited mobility, is very good.  Dan Dailey is also impressive as the Petty Officer assistant to Wead, who nurses him back to health.

Ford supposedly knew Wead personally — Wead worked on some films with Ford (and was an author of Ford’s Navy epic, They Were Expendable).  Here Ward Bond plays Ford, but is called Dodge (very transparent and not funny pun).

West & Civil War

How the West Was Won (“Civil War”) (1962), dir. by John Ford, with George Peppard (Zeb Rawlings), Carroll Baker (Eve Rawlings), John Wayne (William Tecumseh Sherman), Harry Morgan (Ulysses S. Grant).

How the West Was Won was  an epic western, shot in cinemascope.  The film was shot in different segments, and John Ford took on the job of shooting the “Civil War” segment of the film.  The use of vistas, here much more pronounced because of the extra wide screen, is something that Ford does well, and he does it well here.  In this segment, Ohio farmboy Peppard, hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps (the father, Linus Rawlings, played by Jimmy Stewart, does not appear in this segment, but he had been prominent in earlier segments of the film). 

Young Zeb, when he finally sees action, reacts much as the young man in Red Badge of Courage does — his first inclination is to flee.  But on seeing Sherman consoling Grant on the way the war has gone, takes the comfort Sherman offers to heart, and rescues the two generals from a Confederate shooter.  We assume that, hereafter, the young man will be fine, though we see no further action in the War. 

The use of vistas in the segment is quite well done, but the story and acting of this section is nothing notable or remarkable.

Give me Liberty…

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962), dir. John Ford, w/ John Wayne (Tom Doniphon), Jimmy Stewart (Ransom Stoddard), Lee Marvin (Liberty Valence), Vera Miles (Hallie).

As the newspaper editor who hears the story of the film told to him notes, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”  This is a film about the image of the West and how that comes to be maintained.  Like many of Ford’s Westerns, and certainly the Westerns he made after 1956’s The Searchers, the West of this film is not populated with heroic men, but with flawed men, set in an heroic landscape. The film also features the subject of unrequited love as had The Searchers.  Here, Stewart, who had played ambiguous characters in the westerns he made with Anthony Mann, plays a fairly decent man, a man with principles and a certain amount of courage, and who hates the idea of killing and violence.  There is a sense in this film that the ideals that Stoddard represents are needed for the West to mature, but there is also a sense that without the muscle of Tom Doniphon, all those principles mean nothing, for there is no way to enforce the law and order Stoddard represents without the threat of violence.

One interesting point in the film.  Woody Strode plays Pompey, Tom’s servant/hired hand.  But at the end of the story, following the shoot-out in the street that resulted in the death of Liberty Valence (something that comes as a great relief to the town), he is refused a drink — the refusal is uttered by the bartender as if he were simply quoting policy, though in this town, he is clearly the equal of any other, and seems so treated.  Ford was a liberal in social policy and seems to have hated racism, something he attacked in Sgt. Rutledge (1960) with Strode as the title character, and which he attacks here, though only by suggestion and in passing.

Not so long a voyage…

The Long Voyage Home (1940), dir. by John Ford, w/ John Wayne (Olson), Thomas Mitchell (Driscoll), John Qualen (Axel), Ward Bond (Yank).

This is quite a striking film, in part, because Ford is generally known for his exteriors, and this film, based on 4 one-act plays by Eugene O’Neill (The Moon of the Caribees, In The Zone, Bound East for Cardiff, and The Long Voyage Home) is primarily set in the cabin or on-deck the ship, Glencairn, or in a dive on the waterfront. 

The opening segment, with the ship in the West Indies, opens on native women seductively moving to music — they are contrasted with the rather rough looking cast of characters on board the ship, all of whom clearly have a fever for alcohol and female companionship.  When they come on board the ship, all the discipline fails. 

O’Neill’s plays feature a cast of characters such as one might see in any war film — there is the young idealist (Olson), the seasoned philosopher (Donkeyman, played by Arthur Shields), the good-hearted cynic, Driscoll (Mitchell).  Given the situation — men aboard ship — it perhaps makes sense that we see the same sort of conventional characters we’d see in a war movie.  Ford updated the story to WWII — O’Neill wrote the plays during WWI — with the increase in potential danger to the crew. 

Like any WWII film, this has a certain patriotic quality, and perhaps Ford realized that the US would be getting in to the war within a few years, and when we did, it would be on the side of the Allies. 

What is especially striking about this film is the camera work — Gregg Tolson, who would go on to work with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane, did the cinematography, and it’s stunning, especially in capturing the dark shadows in the town at the film’s end, and on board the darkened ship as the film tries to beat the blockade.

The acting is fine, and I think the actors do a good job at making the characters seem authentic — O’Neill tends to paint his various ethnic figures with a broad stroke.  Only John Qualen, who made a career out of playing Scandinavian characters, presents a caricature close to what O’Neill’s language suggests.  John Wayne, though he doesn’t succeed in getting Olson’s accent right, also steers clear of making him too much of a caricature.

This wee is big…

Wee Willie Winkie (1937), dir. John Ford, w/ Shirley Temple (Priscilla “Winkie” Williams), Victor McLaglen (Sgt. Donald MacDuff), C. Aubrey Smith (Col. Williams), Cesar Romero (Khonda Khan).

This is a rather strange film.  Who thought to assign a Shirley Temple vehicle to John Ford?  And yet, he somehow makes it work.  It lacks a lot of the syrup of many other Temple vehicles, though she is still the adorable little darling of other films.  In this film, she plays a young girl, whose father has died, and whose mother, due to financial necessity, must move to India to live with her father-in-law, a by the book British colonel, played true to form by C. Aubrey Smith, who seems to be the icon of stiff-upper-lip British majors and colonels.  The setting here is quite remarkable — set in Northern India (what would now be Pakistan), the British forces are having trouble keeping the natives from revolting under the charismatic Muslim  leader, Khonda Khan, played as almost a dark Latin lover by Cesar Romero.  The seriousness of the British situation, and the underlying racism (the Europeans are better able to run a country than the natives) make this something other than a typical Temple vehicle.  In some respects, it harkens back to The Lost Patrol (also with McLaglen), where a British troop in North Africa is set upon by native forces.  We also have an unexpected death in the film, which seems quite dramatic in a Temple vehicle. 

The film falls apart, though, when Winkie (Temple) is able to help in brokering a peace deal between the British and the locals — instead of a deus ex machina, we have a “puellula ex machina.” 

A capable directing job by Ford, who also does a good job with the teenage Temple in Fort Apache (1948).  Otherwise not a particularly stellar offering from Ford.

The film is based on a story by Rudyard Kipling, where the grandchild of the commander is male, who must prove himself in a battle situation.  Substituting Shirley Temple for a young man results in quite a different story.

Tis a grand Grande…

Rio Grande (1950), dir. John Ford, w/ John Wayne (Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke), Maureen O’Hara (Mrs. Kathleen Yorke), Claude Jarman, Jr. (Jefferson Yorke), Harry Carey, Jr. (Daniel “Sandy” Boone), Ben Johnson (Travis Tyree), Victor McLaglen (Sgt. Timothy Quincannon).

This is the third of the films in Ford’s “Cavalry Trilogy” — the other entries being Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).  Here John Wayne plays the commander of an outpost.  His name, Kirby Yorke, is remarkably similar to that in Fort Apache (where the name is missing the final e).  The character is similar as it is another variant of the John Wayne film persona — the strong, silent type.  This Yorke’s history seems to be different from that of Capt. York in the other film.  I’m not sure why the name was kept — it suggests a continuity with the other film that is not there.  The second film in the trilogy changes the name of Wayne’s character (to Capt. Brittles), but keeps Victor McLaglen’s Sgt. Quincannon (who appears as roughly the same character in all three films — a big, sentimental lug who likes his whiskey). 

The storyline of this film seems to follow two vectors — we observe young Jefferson Yorke, who failed out of West Point, learning how to become a man, and his father getting to observe this.  We also observe the attempts at reconciliation between Mr. and Mrs. Yorke — she from the South, and he from the North, she trying to protect her son and return him to her home in the South, and he trying to make sure he has the chance to prove himself.  Wayne utters a telling line about how his son gave his word and that he must learn that such a pledge means something even at the cost of one’s life.  In a sense, that sentiment might be used as a motto for all the cavalry films, and most of the Ford westerns. 

This film is well shot, as always, in Monument Valley, but it does have one feature not in the other films.  The “Sons of the Pioneers” appear throughout the film singing songs that seem pertinent to the action.  This makes the film seem more like a Roy Rogers’ film, and somewhat undercuts the family drama and the action of the Indian uprising.

Geronimo…

Fort Apache (1948), dir. by John Ford, w/ John Wayne (Capt. Kirby Yorke), Henry Fonda (Lt. Col. Owen Thursday), Shirley Temple (Philadelphia Thursday), Ward Bond (Sgt. Maj. Michael O’Rourke), John Agar (2nd Lt. Michael O’Rourke).

This is the first of Ford’s “Cavalry Trilogy,” along with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), all featuring John Wayne as a cavalry officer.  In this film, Col. Thursday, a by-the-book martinet arrives at the fort to take command of what he perceives as a lax operation.  In truth, his closed view keeps him from recognizing superior work by the troops, and from recognizing that Cochise and the Apaches can be reasoned with, but not bullied into returning to the reservation.  Thursday is not a bad officer, but a person whose limitations (an inability to see outside the box) have the potential of ending Thursday and others in disaster.  Of course, the remainder of the troop can see the situation much better, but are restrained by army regulations and a sense of duty from taking actions against Col. Thursday. 

The most memorable feature of the film are the two dances (there’s a dance near the opening of the film and the non-commissioned officers’ ball) and the external shots of Capt. York and a trooper as they go to find Cochise for a pow-wow — they travel through Monument Valley, a location Ford used for his Westerns from Stagecoach (1939) on.  Here, the use of landscape is truly magnificent, with the two lonely figures profiled against the sky, or shown in a long shot from above, two very small figures against the great vista of the valley. 

Fonda does a very good job playing against type as the martinet, and Shirley Temple does a fine job in her role as the colonel’s teenaged daughter.  Wayne, of course, remains true to form as the captain.  One weakness I’ve noticed in Ford’s films is the tendency to show the Irish as a bit too fond of drink.  Here, Victor McLaglen is one of three sergeants who are always eager for another drink.

Oh my darling…

My Darling Clementine (1946), dir. John Ford, with Henry Fonda (Wyatt Earp), Ward Bond (Morgan Earp), Victor Mature (Doc Holliday), Walter Brennan (Old Man Clanton), Cathy Downs (Clementine Carter).

One of the standard films about the famous incident in Tombstone, AZ, the gunfight at the OK Corral.  I have to say that the gunfight itself in this film is rather a let down.  The rustling of the Earp cattle and the killing of the youngest of the Earp boys convinces Wyatt, now retired from the marshalling business, to take the job of town marshall. And those opening scenes in the dark, with Wyatt apprehending a drunken Indian shooting up a saloon, are quite impressive. 

In a sense, this is a film about loneliness and community.  Though Wyatt has two brothers still living, who have joined him as deputies until the job is done, Wyatt is generally shown alone.  The person he seems most comfortable with is Doc Holliday, who is also very much a loner — a word here about Victor Mature’s performance — he does a good job with Doc as a loner, but Doc Holliday was a very sick man and Mature’s rather beefy appearance doesn’t convince us of his sickness, with all his coughing. 

The film is more about the building of community — after Wyatt restores some law and order to the town, there is a church built and a schoolhouse.  One of the more memorable scenes in the film involves Wyatt and Clementine Carter dancing together on the foundation of the church to be built.  There is also a moment when Wyatt, who leans back in his chair on the porch of the hotel eyeballing the action on the main street, does a little jig with his feet against the post, his arms outstretched to balance.  It’s a very brief moment, but very striking — it gives Wyatt’s character a certain grace that an action figure might not otherwise have.

Walter Brennan does a fine turn as the crotchety and wily (and rather sadistic) Old Man Clanton, the patriarch of the Clanton household.