Mister Roberts

Mister Roberts (John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy, Joshua Logan, 1955) Hollywood wanted to make a movie of the hit Broadway play that was a sensation for Henry Fonda, and Fonda wanted to make it—a labor of love. But, the studios thought Fonda (just shy of 50 years of age) might be a little too old for the lead, like twice the age he should be (they were thinking of Marlon Brando or William Holden). And then, there was an issue with the property—it was a bit too critical of the Navy and cast it in a less than inspiring light. The Admiralty-that-be was reluctant to grant its cooperation or to lend any of its ships or facilities to lend the film any verisimilitude as long as the film was anything less than respectful.

Enter John Ford. Ford had served in the Navy during World War II. He was a "friend" in Hollywood to the military and his captaincy of the production reassured the Navy brass that attitudes wouldn't get out of hand (and the uniforms would be correct). Ford would take care of the Navy.

As for Warner Brothers, Ford insisted that Henry Fonda—and nobody but Henry Fonda—would star in Mister Roberts. This put Warners in a bind. They couldn't make Mister Roberts without John Ford and John Ford wouldn't make Mister Roberts with anybody else in the lead. To compensate for Fonda's age, Ford cast older actors in key roles—James Cagney and William Powell—as well as members of his "stock company"—Ward Bond, Harry Carey, Jr., Ken Curtis and Patrick Wayne. All was set in place for a good shoot of a stage classic.

And then, things got messy. When Ford met Cagney at the airport, he greeted him with a snarling threat that they would "tangle asses." Cagney showed up a bit late the first day of shooting and Ford was ready to lay into him. Cagney had worked with the director before—the remake of What Price Glory in 1953—and knew he could be a tyrant on-set, and told Ford he was ready to fight and make good on his threat at the airport. Ford backed down. He knew he would get a fight from Cagney, but he threw his way of belittling actors onto Powell, which infuriated Cagney. "I would have kicked his brains out." said Cagney to his biographer, Doug Warren. "He was so goddamned mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man."

Then, Ford began to drink on-set. His command of the production was being challenged and he didn't like it. When he'd had a little too much, he would let Ward Bond oversee a shot. Early on, Henry Fonda, who'd won a Tony Award for Best Actor in the stage version, was unhappy with the script, and started to feel that Ford was indulging in too much slap-stick into a project that was a personal mission. A "clearing-the-air" meeting between producer Leland Hayward, Fonda and Ford escalated to the point where the director punched his star in the face. There was an apology, but the relationship between the two (they'd made pictures together) was forever fractured.

The movie, set during the last days of the second world war, tells the story of Lt. Doug Roberts (Fonda), stationed aboard the U.S.S. Reluctant (nicknamed "The Bucket" by the crew). A Navy cargo ship, it sails between harbors shipping supplies on time and efficiently thanks to Roberts' efforts as executive officer/cargo chief, a fact not lost on the ship's commander Lt. Commander Morton (Cagney), a badgering weasel of a man who enjoys the perks and accolades that their record entitles him to. The ship's crew is not much, but are loyal to Roberts, who acts as a buffer between the men and Morton.

But, Roberts is dissatisfied—he didn't join the Navy to shuttle supplies between "backwater" stations and currying favor with port commanders—he joined to fight for his country and persistently puts in for transfers to other ships in action, attempts Morton constantly sabotages to keep Roberts under his command—so he can enjoy the rewards of Roberts good efforts. For Morton, there is an added bonus—after a lifetime of being looked down upon in menial jobs, he gets to "dish it out" to the "smart college boy" Roberts. In order to get the men a much-needed liberty, Roberts promises Morton that he won't request any more transfers—the repeated pleas are making Morton look bad. But, when the men's activities get Morton a reprimand, he doubles down on Roberts and the crew, implying that Roberts has turned against them for a promotion. It proves too much for Roberts, who takes decisive action.

One can see parallels between what was happening in front of the camera and behind-the-scenes. A frustrated star, who was never satisfied with the film as compared to the stage version. A director who kept control over his productions through abuse. A supporting cast that soldiered on, despite the turmoil on-set—it would be Powell's last film, Cagney's last for Warner Brothers, and the launching of Jack Lemmon's career with a performance that won him an Academy Award for his horny, puppy-dumb Ensign Pulver.

Ford eventually was shipped out to Hawaii to dry out, then came a gall-bladder attack, necessitating a replacement by LeRoy, who screened Ford's footage and tried to shoot it the way Ford had, but LeRoy's appreciation of light isn't there. Once LeRoy had finished, Hayward and Fonda got the play's director, Joshua Logan, to re-shoot many of the scenes (probably a lot of the interiors). The result is a mixed bag of some breath-taking images, flat attempts to reproduce them, and rather perfunctory interiors that play like they're from another movie—you can tell the Logan scenes because nobody's sweating in them.

Take a look at this sequence of shots—all from the penultimate scene of the film. I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to say that the top shot of Lemmon—an exterior shot—is by Ford, and the two below it, are by LeRoy—interiors intended to look like exteriors and with the same actors in the same positions, but not as natural and somewhat stiffly arranged.

And Logan—here are some interior shots, with their vast expanses of unused screen space, and everything just a little too neat and tidy, the decks recently swabbed, and just a little too orderly to be believed they'd been lived in. While not exactly a Frankenstein's monster of a movie, the shift in presentation does get under one's skin and undermines one's appreciation. Mister Roberts was not the sensation it was intended to be—not as realistic, not as salty, not as controversial, and a far cry from the initial intention of author Thomas Heggen in both book and play. Fonda basically disowned it.

And what of Ford? He would take a couple months away from features to do a couple television films, and returned to Warner Brothers with one of his best—and some would say his greatest film—1956's The Searchers.

The History of John Ford: Wagon Master

When Orson Welles was asked what movies he studied before embarking on directing Citizen Kane he replied, "I studied the Old Masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford."

Running parallel with our series about Akira Kurosawa ("Walking Kurosawa's Road"), we're running a series of pieces about the closest thing America has to Kurosawa in artistry—director John Ford. Ford rarely made films set in the present day, but (usually) made them about the past...and about America's past, specifically (when he wasn't fulfilling a passion for his Irish roots).

In "The History of John Ford" we'll be gazing fondly at the work of this American Master, who started in the Silent Era, learning his craft, refining his director's eye, and continuing to work deep into the 1960's (and his 70's) to produce the greatest body of work of any American "picture-maker," America's storied film-maker, the irascible, painterly, domineering, sentimental puzzle that was John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford. 


Wagon Master (John Ford, 1950) The western expansion of the American frontier is a standard theme of...the Western. John Ford had featured prospective settlers (and settling prospectors) in many of his films, but made the phenomenon the center of his film Wagonmaster, a modest black and white western, made in between When Willie Comes Marching Home and Rio Grande. Wagonmaster could well be the pilot episode of the television series "Wagon Train" (1957-1965)—which also starred Ward Bond in the first four seasons. There are no A-list stars—just the "Ford Stock Company" stepping front and center in the film, rather than filling the corners and back-stories.

Ford begins the movie bluntly with an almost silent sequence (Ford learned his craft making silent pictures)—the Clegg's (Charles Kemper, James Arness, Hank Worden, Fred Libby, and Mickey Simpson) are robbing the Crystal City Bank, resulting in Pa Clegg being shot in the wing, and, incensed by the inconvenience and the impertinence, shooting the chief clerk in the back without regard to the escalation. The bank's sole source of internal light, a hanging hurricane lamp, swings with the force and the temerity of it. There have been no titles, no studio accreditation, no introduction. The movie begins with a terrible act with no word of warning.

It is only then that the titles appear proudly, diametrically, over footage of a dogged wagon train (complete with dog) accompanied by the "Song of the Wagonmaster" by The Sons of the Pioneers emphasizing the highs and lows of the rolling life. There is a lot of music in Wagonmaster, over such montages, that one might be distracted from some of the more beautifully comp0sed shots, or the rigors it took to achieve them, but to say it's a "musical" (as some appreciative writers have stated) may be stating it too strongly, considering the amount of song and group-musicianship in others of his works.

As the Clegg's silently take to the hills, watching their backs, two horse-traders ("That's my business!"), Travis (Ben Johnson) and Sandy (Harry Carey, Jr.) ride  out of Navajo Country with their latest acquisitions, trying to calculate their fortunes at $30 a head. They pull into Crystal City, the town still recovering from the recent murderous bank robbery and the Sheriff makes a show of checking the ponies while actually appraising the men attached to them—they're neither the type nor the number.

Convincing the Sheriff enough of their innocence to sell him a pony—and play a prank that sets the horse, with the Sheriff temporarily attached, careening into the streets—the two plan to rest up in town to play a few rounds of "High-Low-Jick, Jack, Ginny and the Bean Gun," which, besides the passing of funds, will give Travis his own assessment of the town and his future fortunes, given a conversation he'd had previously that day.

"I'm in"

The film proper doesn't get underway until Travis and Sandy meet the blustery ("I repent my words of wrath") Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) and a small contingent of his party of Mormons who are being run out of Crystal City by the "fine" folk there who do not like their ways ("that's why I keep my hat on—so the horns won't show"), Their aim is to wagon-train to a "valley reserved for us by the Lord," by the San Juan Rover, hoping to get there before the winter rains come, to set up an outpost for their brethren to follow to. They want to buy the ponies and are in need of "wagon-masters" to negotiate the trail. During an extended negotiation that involves whittling interspersed with some volatile umbrage by the elder over price and the pony-men's lack of availability (even though they don't drink, don't chaw, don't cuss—much—and display no vices, other than a propensity towards gambling), the elder walks away merely with horseflesh and the responsibility for the journey.

Well, if there ever was a gamble...; when the Mormon party is escorted to the city limits, Travis and Sandy are there to meet them as they inform Wiggs that his group is not facing hundreds of miles of unknown alone. Wiggs is grateful for the help, but not all of the party are thrilled, chafing from taking orders from ruffians not part of the flock—they have women and children, after all. Wiggs has to be peace-maker, which is an unusual role for him, and one he's not accustomed to.

It's a big country out West—it was filmed in Moab, Utah (out-of-reach in order to discourage visits by producers) and parts of Monument Valley (to take advantage of extras from the Navajo nation, some familiar faces from other Ford productions can be seen among the Natives), but being close to the outskirts of civilization—that being Crystal City—the wagon train comes across others of their outcasts, which the sheriff listed as "Mormons, Cleggses, showfolk, horsetraders." The Mormons are far enough along that water is in short supply when they come across #3 in the list: Dr. A. Locksley Hall (Alan Mowbray), travelling showman and rumored dentist, selling a healing elixir, accompanied by two women no one would confuse with nurses Fleuretty Phyffe (Ruth Clifford) and Denver (Joanne Dru, who had just featured in Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon). When they're found, they have run out of water, and are staying alive—but not on their feet—with the doctor's snake-oil.

Liquor and loose women are usually not a good mix with Mormons, but as the party is in a terrible spot, they're allowed to be party to the train, at least until they reach water. Being show-folk, they don't quite understand the necessity of rationing water with no shaving and no showers.

But outcasts attract, and though the Mormons keep the "show-folk" at arm's length, Elder Wiggs has enough of a past with (what he calls) "hootchy-kootchy shows", he can see Miss Fleuretty as "a fine figure of a woman" (she's loyal to the doctor, however), and Travis and Denver have one of those passive-aggressive flirtations that pop up in Ford films with strong women and cowed boys. Although the journey involves struggle, generally everyone is doing the right thing, perhaps due to their empathy with their lot as outsiders or undesirables, perhaps to their religious beliefs, regardless of their faith—extending to the Native Nahajo's who welcome them into their camp, as Mormons have a reputation for being less dishonest than other whites.

And far less than the "Cleggses." It is inevitable in the rules of drama that in all the wilderness that they should eventually meet up with antagonists. It's where the good feelings generated within and by the wagon train are challenged and where their dreams are threatened. It's also crucial in the Ford Universe; sure, everybody is an outcast from "polite society," but that doesn't make everyone a saint by default. That list of "Mormons, 'Cleggses', show-folk and horse-traders" has one rough-hewn peg in it and the "Cleggses" have no best intentions other than fulfilling their basic needs with no aspirations beyond that. Ford's heroes, no matter their place in society (or outside of it) have hopes, dreams...plans...purpose.

But, his villains: they may have dreams, but also have no qualms ruthlessly—or cluelessly—quashing the dreams of others. In Wagonmaster, community is all, and once the stakes rise high enough to affect the future, that's when ultimate action must be taken against oppression, even on a wagon train that now, thanks to being overrun by the "Cleggses", has no guns.

Wagonmaster has no stars to bank on, (but, then, neither did Stagecoach)—the one Oscar winning actor of the bunch, Jane Darwell, has very few lines (maybe five) in the entire thing. Stars have a tendency to dominate story, and in the case of Wagonmaster, would distract from it. Better that the story remain distributed among the many, and that the focus be on the journey and the collective that it forms. As it's the story for the quest for settlement and the forging of a community with the best of intentions and with an eye toward the future.

It was one of director Ford's favorite films, despite it lack of success at the box-office. That maybe entirely due to the vision that he held for it and his view of how well the task was accomplished—what we now call the "signal to noise" ratio.* 

Better than The Searchers, though? To my mind, no. But, then, The Searchers is a study in human nature and its worst qualities in regards to race prejudices, whereas Wagonmaster points to the best instincts, despite the impact of such things. Wagonmaster has hope and looks ahead, not back.

It's a beautiful film to watch, and one to cherish.

* A modern example is George Lucas' Star Wars: Oh, sure, everybody loved it, but it was a film that he was disappointed in, despite its success—that he felt that need to tinker with it, erasing the flaws he constantly saw in it, to make it closer to what he originally had in mind.

The History of John Ford: 3 Godfathers (1948)

When Orson Welles was asked what movies he studied before embarking on directing Citizen Kane he replied, "I studied the Old Masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." 

Running parallel with our series about Akira Kurosawa ("Walking Kurosawa's Road"), we're running a series of pieces about the closest thing America has to Kurosawa in artistry—director John Ford. Ford rarely made films set in the present day, but (usually) made them about the past...and about America's past, specifically (when he wasn't fulfilling a passion for his Irish roots). In "The History of John Ford" we'll be gazing fondly at the work of this American Master, who started in the Silent Era, learning his craft, refining his director's eye, and continuing to work deep into the 1960's (and his 70's) to produce the greatest body of work of any American "picture-maker," America's storied film-maker, the irascible, painterly, domineering, sentimental puzzle that was John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

3 Godfathers (John Ford, 1948) Ford's version of The Nativity Story set in the very wild West is a remake of his 1919 silent film Marked Men,* which starred Harry Carey. The son of John Ford's first star, Harry Carey Jr. made his acting debut in this one as The Abilene Kid, who along with John Wayne and Pedro Armendáriz, play former cattle rustlers up-scaling to bank robbery. After the meager heist, they escape a posse from Welcome, Arizona (led by Ward Bond's Sheriff B. Sweet, as well as Hank Worden and Ben Johnson) by taking a perilous escape route through the desert (it was filmed in Death Valley)—not the wisest of men or maneuvers. Their flight leaves them wounded, their water supply draining and quickly losing every means of survival in the desert.

Things get complicated when, looking for water, they come across an established well that a tenderfoot, in his ignorance and panic has dynamited in an an attempt to get more water, destroying it. If that weren't bad enough, he's run off into the desert to find his stock, driven loco by alkaline poisoning, leaving behind his wife (Mildred Natwick) delirious and about to give birth. Unbeknownst to them, she's the niece of Sheriff Sweet's.  

Armendáriz, Wayne and Carey Jr. don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies

The leader of the group Bob Hightower (Wayne) can't cope with the intricacies of the situation, leaving "Pete" Rocafuerte (Armendáriz) to deliver the baby, and when the mother dies, leaving the three with a promise to care for the child she has named Robert William Pedro, the three villains must learn the basics of child-care (thanks to a book written by "Doc Meechum"), but with limited supplies they must cross the desert, led by a single star to the town of New Jerusalem (the other choices are Cairo and Damascus). It isn't long before The Kid tells them it's their Destiny, that they were led to this place, this child, this duty, this precedent.  
It is, after all, almost Christmas.

It's a sweet story, about how the spirit turns with the charge of a newborn, and how even those on a downward spiral can be lifted up by a lack of self. And Ford, working with screenwriters Frank Nugent (a new find with his Fort Apache script) and Laurence Stallings (with whom Ford and Nugent would collaborate on She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) keeps the sentiment high, and the humor all over the map from leaden to subtle. Even without its silent roots (Mae Marsh from The Birth of a Nation has a large role!), the film, in tone, feels like a throwback to an earlier time, like Ford's work in the '30's circa Stagecoach—not a bad time at all. And, in the timeline of his work this looks like a wave good-bye to his western work of the past, as Ford would subtly move on to the slightly more serious She Wore a Yellow Ribbon to the dire The Searchers within the space of seven years.  

It was about this time that Wayne's performance in Howard Hawks' Red River (playing "old" at 41 years of age) was noticed by everyone, and notably Ford, who had still been using Wayne in co-starring roles. "I didn't know the big sonuvabitch could act!" Ford groused to Hawks. 3 Godfathers is Wayne stepping into the limelight of Ford's films, where he would stay (mostly) for the rest of Ford's career. And, as with the humor of the film, Wayne's performance covers a lot of ground, leaden to subtle. His physical work is unmatched, as usual, casually sitting on a horse as if it was an easy chair, stumbling through the desert in an alarming drunk march (supposedly holding a baby, which throw some scary drama into it, if you think about it), doing little character things you only notice later, like the way Hightower trudges dumbly through an edge-of-town water collection at the start of the film before it becomes of the utmost importance, and something that seems peculiarly florid and over-the-top but pays off hugely throughout the film: Hightower is something of a jerk and mean-spirited and given to elaborate mock-formality when teasing others, especially the way he takes off his hat and does a too-formal presentation of it. It looks phony (it is phony for this rough man of the West), but it turns into genuine acts of kindness and civility—the man grows into the gesture and becomes him, a signature of the man he has become through the trails and tribulations that have become the period to a life of bad manners, bad habits and bad choices. And the film ends with that same gesture, sending the man off to his fate, but promising the return of a better man and a better future.

The resonant gesture of John Wayne in its most practical usage:
Thanks to the Way of Seeing blog for noticing this one.

This is all done with pictures, part of the skein of direction that Ford imposes on the film that, combined with the exquisite cinematography of Winton Hoch, makes this odd, anti-Christmas Christmas film something of a precious gem for the Holidays.

* There is also a harder edged 1936 version starring Chester Morris, Lewis Stone and Walter Brennan, directed by Richard Boleshawski.

The History of John Ford: "The Cavalry Trilogy"

When Orson Welles was asked what movies he studied before embarking on directing Citizen Kane he replied, "I studied the Old Masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." 

Running parallel with our series about Akira Kurosawa ("Walking Kurosawa's Road"), we're running a series of pieces about the closest thing America has to Kurosawa in artistry—director John Ford. Ford rarely made films set in the present day, but (usually) made them about the past...and about America's past, specifically (when he wasn't fulfilling a passion for his Irish roots). 

In "The History of John Ford" we'll be gazing fondly at the work of this American Master, who started in the Silent Era, learning his craft, refining his director's eye, and continuing to work deep into the 1960's (and his 70's) to produce the greatest body of work of any American "picture-maker," America's storied film-maker, the irascible, painterly, domineering, sentimental puzzle that was John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

Ford's Monument Valley
photographed by the writer in 1976

Fort Apache (1948)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Rio Grande (1950)

"This is the West, sir. When the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend"

Chronologically, they're out of order. Two are in black and white. The third in glorious Oscar-winning color. Some characters appear in two of the three films. One man's story forms a character arc across two films, but you don't have to see both to know his story. They're all about honor. They're all about duty. They're all about family. They're all about the U.S. Cavalry during the move West. They're about carving civilization out of a rough-hewn wilderness.

And they're about the devastation of the Native people to achieve it. Ford would tackle the subject of the inherent racism behind that tragedy starting with The Searchers five years after the last of these films, then throughout the rest of his westerns. He touches on it in these films, in the duplicity of the white bureaucrats, military men and profiteers and you can see the crack forming in history as it occurred and History as it was presented in text...and the movies, as obvious as the crags etched into the location of all three films-the magnificent Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation.

And there is a fourth story not told in these films, but behind the scenes, of a film director bucking the studio system, and in so doing, casting a safety net to a civilization whose extinction was being chronicled, and often celebrated, in that system.

Fort Apache (John Ford, 1948) At Fort Apache, a finger of civilization has poked through the wild west. For the U.S. Cavalry, the isolated post has become home to some of the families of the men, and so tensions are high—there is unrest among the Apaches, led by Cochise—and security is a priority. Brought in to lead the way is Civil War general Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda), an arrogant ideologue and martinet, with his own vision of the West that has nothing to do with reality.

Any similarity to George Armstrong Custer is strongly suggested—this at a time when the legend of Custer was still very much in keeping with his widow's intentions of keeping her husband in the most heroic of lights, aided and abetted by fawning newspapermen, nickel-biographers, covetous land-barons, and even the Anheuser-Busch company.* Indeed, the "legend" of Custer would extend deep into the 1960's, decades after Ford's film.

Thursday takes no prisoners and no guff from his veteran cavalryman, Captain Kirby York (John Wayne), passed over for command of the fort, and who prefers a policy of negotiation. York doesn't blame the natives for the Apaches' anger, but, instead, the double-dealings of corrupt Indian agents. After watching years of uneasy relations shattered by Thursday's inflexibility, York must grit his teeth and watch as it leads to disaster, and then defend his superior officer's reputation for the good of the Corps.

Years later, in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the dictum behind York's reactions were spelled out plainly: "When the Legend becomes Fact, Print the Legend." York does what he does for the good of the Cavalry, but by promoting the myth. he is complicit in the further hard-nosed approach exemplified by Thursday and the decimation of the tribes. The film's triumphant huzzahs to the U.S. Cavalry have a tinge of melancholy to them, as York's words are matched by a shot of riding troops in a pane of glass—a reflection.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) Ford was encouraged by Wayne's performance in director Howard Hawks' Red River** to cast him as retiring Cavalry Officer Col. Nathan Brittles, a by-the-book cavalryman who bends rules until they almost snap. That includes personally negotiating with Cheyenne Chief Pony That Walks (Chief John Big Tree) to head off a bloody up-rising. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is full of Ford's hi-jinx and low humor, with squabbling lovers (Joanne Dru, John Agar and Harry Carey, Jr.), drunken sergeants,*** and the imminent retirement looming. Ford had worked in color before (Drums Along the Mohawk) and his set-pieces are bright contrasts to the red clay of the Monument Valley dirt. There is one unnervingly beautiful sequence of a night-time trek through Monument Valley in the middle of a lightning storm, done over the objections of the Technicolor Consultant, who subsequently won an Oscar for their "work."

Along with Carey, McLaglen and other members of the Ford stock company, a new face appeared—Ben Johnson, who in 1971, would win an Academy Award for The Last Picture Show. He was a horse wrangler and rider in Ford's productions and proved invaluable on the set. So much so that Ford rewarded him with a speaking part as Trooper Tyree, the Unit's invaluable scout, the first of many roles Johnson would play for Ford.

And it contains one of my favorite Ford moments: Wayne 's Brittles confronting the Chief Pony That Walks , played by Seneca Chief John Big Tree. In a quavering, ancient voice and shouting his dialogue, the old man still holds his own against Wayne, who usually blew other actors off the screen. "Hallelujah, Nathan! I am a Christian!" he shouts in greeting. His appearance must have given strokes to the "suits" in Hollywood. A native! Doing a speaking part! And you can't understand him! Why couldn't Ford get Anthony Quinn or something?****

And here, we interrupt to tell a tale. An aside, certainly, but on a subject more important than movies. There's a reason Ford consistently shot his Westerns in Monument Valley. Pictorially, it has a lot to do with a representation of vast, uncivilized space--rough-hewn ancient structures that show no sign of man, an unmarked slate. But, practically, it was more than that. Monument Valley sits square in the Four Corners on the Navajo Reservation. And to use that location, Ford had to pay the tribe. If he'd gone to Arches National Park a day's drive away, the money would have gone to the State of Utah. But, Monument Valley, the tribe.

On top of that, Ford and his production team used the Native's as extras, stuntmen, horsemen, consultants—money in the pockets of each tribesman. Those long lines of native riders beading the horizon in Ford westerns? All paid employees. The women and children that stuff the frames of village shots are not merely there for "color." They were all paid to get the tribe through a tough winter in one of the more inhospitable environments on the continent. And the Chief John Big Tree, though he may have had difficulty with his lines (and probably learned them phonetically) was paid the highest scale, merely for speaking lines in the script. There is a reason there is a John Ford tourist center at Monument Valley, and why he was made an honorary chief. Ford's Westerns saved more Indians than were represented to be killed. And his politically incorrect first suggestions of white duplicity in the "taming" of the West (which would culminate in his films The Searchers and Cheyenne Autumn—in which he endeavored to make a movie about "The Trail of Tears") began to seep in the true story behind the "shoot-em-up's" and "Cowboys-and-Injuns" pictures which were a staple of American entertainment.

Ford's color sense and composition has a Master's eye.

Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) To finance the third Cavalry film (after the $1.6 million budget of Yellow Ribbon), Ford turned to B-movie studio Republic Pictures. Ford yearned to make The Quiet Man there, but studio head Herbert Yates, with no confidence in the script, persuaded Ford to first make a sure-to-be-profitable John Wayne Western first, which would become Rio Grande.

Rio Grande takes a look at the further career of John Wayne's Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (he's sprouted an "e" on the end of his name, for one thing). Estranged from his wife (Maureen O'Hara), posted to the frontier to protect settlers from attacking Apaches, with inadequate forces to do the job, Yorke is feeling a lot of pressure, especially when Phil Sheridan asks him to cross into Mexico to confront the renegades where they're hiding. Then, on top of that, Yorke's son is stationed to his troop. Throughout the course of the movie, Yorke comes dangerously close to becoming the type of commander his old superior, Owen Thursday, was.

Ben Johnson returns as Trooper Tyree, as does Victor McLaglen as now Sgt. Major Quincannon. Harry Carey, Jr. plays another role entirely.

Ford made other westerns during this time period--Three Godfathers, his "Christmas Western," with Wayne, "Dobe" Carey and Pedro Armendariz, and Wagonmaster about the Mormon trek to Utah, with Ward Bond, Carey and Ben Johnson. But Ford's next film with a Cavalry presence would be The Searchers, in which, accompanied by a jaunty Irish tune, the heroes of this trilogy would be responsible for the murder of women and children, and one of the main characters would turn to the other and question them "What'd they kill her for? She didn't hurt nobody!"

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance a newspaperman tells Jimmy Stewart's Congressman Stoddard "This is the West, sir. When the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend," "becomes" in the sense of casting a better light on the Truth.**** Ford filmed his "Cavalry Trilogy" with that maxim in mind, and had even showed its employment in distorting History. Now, in the last part of his storied career, he would tear the Legend away to expose Truth, and show Americans in their entertainment, what was lost in winning the West.

* The beer giant commissioned a painting (below) that was distributed and hung in every saloon that carried their product.

** "I didn't know the dumb son-of-a-bitch could act!" he would remark to Howard Hawks.

*** Played by Ford favorite, Victor McLaglen, whom Ford directed to a Best Actor Oscar for The Informer. McLaglen's character Sgt. Quincannon appears in the next Cavalry picture, Rio Grande, as well. There is a Sgt. Quincannon in Fort Apache, played by Dick Foran, rather than McLaglen. McLaglen plays the similar role of Sgt. Mulcahy in Fort Apache.

**** It was a common Hollywood practice to give the most prominent "foreign" role to white actors in make-up, and Ford was as much a victim of the practice as any director. In order to get his "Trail of Tears" epic Cheyenne Autumn made he was forced to use "name" stars such as Latinos Gilbert Roland, Dolores Del Rio, and Ricardo Montalban, and Italian Sal Mineo. Quinn, Mexican-American, has played Latino, Arab, Greek, Italian, Inuit, etc., etc.

***** He would feature the U.S. Cavalry again in two more movies in the last decade of his career—Sergeant Rutledge and Cheyenne Autumn—but the focus was less on the troop's accomplishments than on their failings that had been forgotten in the tellings of the tale.