Truly Exceptional

In honor of America’s birthday last week, I have cobbled together a mini-tribute of three film classics that I believe say something about the nature of American Exceptionalism. Not much in vogue these days, the concept of the United States as a “city on a hill,” driven by very different impulse than its European brethren was first suggested by John Winthrop as he and his pilgrims bobbed off the coast of what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The phrase itself would come later from Alexis de Tocqueville, who described the United States as "exceptional" in 1831. As I have already suggested, it is not terribly politic to talk in such terms anymore, but the idea itself, and indeed the smaller, component ideas that makeup the larger concept, are alive and well in classic film ... if you know where to look.

High Noon (1952)

The quintessential “new sheriff in town” film, only Gary Cooper is the regular sheriff (not the new one), and in this case, his refusal to kowtow to a gang of bandits and leave town is what drives home the film’s larger points about what good men do – or at least should do – when they encounter evil. The metaphor here is not hard to find, and in retrospect, it can be stretched in a number of ways it probably was not intended, but which in my opinion only make the film greater and a more powerful presentation of American values. When threatened with the return of an infamous gang Cooper once locked up, the townspeople refuse to form a posse with him and face down the brutes. Instead, they want Cooper to leave town, thinking that with him gone, they can make a separate peace with the bullies through talk and concessions. Cooper knows otherwise and says as much, but nobody listens. So he decides to stay and take on the gang himself.  The essence of the “strong, silent type” that is in much less supply these days, he faces the gang for the sake of honor, but more than that, he does it for the sake of order, realizing that laws do not mean anything if they are enforced only when it is easy and convenient. What is that? A Cold War parable you say? You bet. Cooper is America, standing up to the Soviet Union and all the tin pot dictators of the world, while the rest of the community of nations prevaricate and argue for understanding, deal-cutting and anything other than confrontation (hey, it is safer, right?). The scene where Cooper confronts the townspeople in Church and they blame him for the fact that bad people want to do terrible things is particular poignant and has obvious real world corollaries. In the end, America (Cooper) stands on its own, doing the ugly duty that must be done, because no one else has the stomach for it.

                                              

Davy Crockett (1955)

A film impossible for red-blooded youngsters to dislike, this beloved Disney classic might present a surface-level view of history, but its enduring personification of America’s frontier spirit more than matches this undertaking's deliberate shortcomings. Fess Parker became a boyhood legend, thanks to this movie and its accompanying television program, and 1950s America briefly went coon-skin cap crazy, as boys everywhere took to the woods with wooden rifles to domesticate their own stretch of wilderness in suburban America. At its heart an adventure film, Parker nonetheless manages to embody the boldness that drove America west. At the same time, Parker’s Crockett moves from a scout who helped Andrew Jackson hunt down rogue Indians to a Congressman who passionately defends Indian rights and excoriates the increasingly ridiculous treaties his former commander foists upon the defeated tribes. The more cynical might call this revisionism, but the real Crockett did indeed break with Jackson and he essentially moved to Texas in response to his disgust with American policy. He famously died at the Alamo, defending the defenseless in spite of incredibly long odds. Accordingly, Crockett embodies the individual at war with federalism, and as such, is something of a Jeffersonian idealist-come-folk hero.

                                     

The Right Stuff (1983)

One of my favorite films of all-time, this part-Western, part fictionalized documentary captures not only the essence of American can-do entrepreneurship, but also something profound about the very nature of what it means to be human and to seek achievement for achievement’s sake. Ego plays a great role in both, and there is plenty in this film, in terms of America’s Mercury Astronauts, six of whom eventually blasted into space during the early 1960s in the now-defunct but once much remarked upon space race against the Soviets. Each of the astronauts is a competitive, egoist but each also serves something greater. The reasons American went to space are complex, but the results are not. Leaving the planet and exploring the near solar-system is a historic achievement not just for the nation but for all mankind, a point this film captures in between its depiction of patriotism and shared-sacrifice. However, at an even deeper, more primal level, we have the story of Chuck Yeager, the man who was not an astronaut. Yeager's incredible spirit, his unquenchable desire to go faster or higher is the brutal embodiment of the basic impulse that drives all human endeavors, and I cannot think of another film that captures this quite so well. Meanwhile, as a nation, America achieves as a whole in this film because it believes it is great and that it should achieve. If that's not exceptionalism, I don't know what is...   

The Unbreakable Shell

John Wayne does three things well.

He talks with a languid toughness that manages to sound both intimidating and wise at the same time and whenever he struts across the screen as a soldier or cowboy he comes across as completely legitimate, despite the painful obviousness in many of his performances.

In 1949’s Sands of Iwo Jima, Wayne puts his best boot forward – and collected an Oscar nomination in the process – when he offers up equal doses of stoicism and sympathy in his now-legendary role as the no-nonsense Marine Sergeant Stryker. It is not an exaggeration to say that the very stereotype of the hard-as-nails drill instructor originates with Wayne and this performance. It is also not an exaggeration to assert Wayne being Wayne in this film is precisely what saves an effort that otherwise would be a profound piece of propaganda celebrating the legend of the Marine Corps.

Because as I said, this is not altogether incredible stuff.

There is a kind of paint-by-numbers with these World War Two epics: The platoon or company is always the center of our attention and it is typically comprised of souls with immediately identifiable accents and at least one personality trait that enables the viewer to remember something unique about that character when he is spotted among the rest of the cast. Part of this is economy, because nobody needs a film with a dozen developed characters, and part of it is filmmakers giving the audience what they expect from the genre (see Saving Private Ryan). Sands of Iwo Jima may be decades old and made within living memory of the actual event, but quite a lot of World War Two films had already appeared by 1949, many of them with Wayne in them, and Hollywood knew what people wanted. More complicated war films, with less obvious tracks, would not come until America began to grapple with how to depict the Vietnam conflict on the screen.

In the case of this film, the American triumph on the tiny island of Iwo Jima signified by the iconic flag-raising ceremony on the summit of Mt. Suribachi was known to virtually every American. The photograph, taken by Joe Rosenthal, had not only graced magazine covers and posters, it had also been used extensively as propaganda piece to raise war bonds (see Flags of My Father). The decision to graft a challenging, if somewhat one-dimensional and episodic plot, on top of a film building to an inevitable event therefore deserves some credit. Stryker could have been more boorish and more boring, and in the hands of a lesser actor he might have been.

Wayne makes him believable and he does not with his bark but with the pained scowl he gets whenever he is confronted by another’s failure to perform or on the occasions when the awfulness of failure attempts to impose itself on his life and the fate of his men. There is a telling scene when Wayne encounters a baby belonging to Julie Bishop after a brief romance in her home. The father is gone, either dead or disinterested, and Wayne is painfully reminded of his own estrangement from his child, and haunted by the possibility that he too may one day leave a woman without a man and a child without a father, should he fall combat.

The scene plays well on Wayne’s running confrontation with John Agar, the arrogant, college-educated son of an officer under whom Wayne served. Agar is the smart-aleck recruit who presents his sergeant with a problem. This would feel stale and prosaic were the father/son motif not the foundation of the turmoil. Wayne watched an officer he loved as a father die, and now the son of that officer is under his care. What is he to do? The answer is make certain the son is ready.

On the American side, the battle of Iwo Jim claimed upwards of 6,000 men and 19,000 casualties, including the lives of most of the men in the famous flag-raising photograph. All but 200 or so of the 20,000 Japanese soldiers on the island died in combat. The latter of the two statistics speaks to what manner of battle the American Marine faced on the island – the enemy, almost literally, was willing to fight to the last man, and nearly did so. America's triumph should be viewed in martial terms that take into account those horrific numbers, but also in the more human tones painted in this film. When Wayne, rather inevitably, falls, his men find a letter on him addressed to his estranged son, saying all the things he wanted to say but could not find the strength to do so while he was alive. It is a cliched moment perhaps, but it still makes the audience feel nonetheless. Here is a tireless warrior, a man among men who trained other men to do great things. And here, laid bare, in a letter he knew could only be posted after he died, is his soul. He was unbreakable as a Marine, but even Marines are people, too.

The Greatest Little Steamboat in the World

It does not get much better than this ... for classic films fans.

The African Queen, the dingy, rundown hooting and smoke-spouting little boat from the 1951 classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn has been refurbished and put back on the water -- where it belongs. One wonders who the audience will be ... or not so much. After all, Suzanne and Lance Holmquist, the couple who found and refurbished the boat do live in Florida, a location likely to attract an older, more appreciative crowd for what is surely an iconic piece of film history and Americana. Found in a Florida marina (see this news story), the boat looks better than ever and hopefully has a few more memories left to make... 

See also my review of the film.

The End of Something?

Hollywood’s fascination with the ancient world makes cinematic sense.

Films are comprised of a great many elements, but above all else, they are visual journeys to a proscribed reality representing a time and place different from our own. Even a contemporary film about contemporary times is artificial in the sense that any narrative structure, by definition, is a representation of reality – not reality itself. Along these lines, it is not surprising filmmakers love costumes and settings that allow them to dabble in world-making, and if one is going to whisk the audience away to somewhere else, why not some other time? But even these points cannot truly account for the spate of sword and sandal films that erupted in the wake of D. W. Griffth’s Intolerance and continued to land on the screen for almost 60-plus years (longer if we include Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and HBO’s Rome). 

Ancient Babylon, from Intolerance.

What else is at work, I suspect, is an attraction to grandeur and momentousness, both of which are tough to spot in one’s own contemporary existence, where and when we tend to remain unimpressed with ourselves – or at the very least, accustomed to our own achievements and challenges. Thus, chariot races become infinitely more visually compelling than moon-landings.

Griffith called his aforementioned effort “colossal spectacle,” and the same description certainly applies to 1964’s The Fall of a Roman Empire, a film that attempts in about three hours to surmise what Edward Gibbon chronicled in several volumes of words. And while it is true this film fails to capture the scope and notoriety of the collapse of one of history’s greatest political systems, it must also be said director Anthony Mann’s attempt sputters along in a rather magnificent fashion. All $20 million of the budget is clearly visible in the picture’s astounding costumes and sets and there are extras galore in the battle scenes. Whatever else it succeeds or fails to achieve, one cannot argue the filmmakers here failed to pay enough time and attention to all things that look, feel or smell Roman.

The opening scenes in the wilds of Germania are particularly well done. Indeed, anyone who smitten with the supposed incredibleness of CGI-animation should return to this film and these scenes and gander at the Roman Fort, perched on the edge of the Empire. Most of the set was probably created through a combination of mat-paintings, miniatures and balsa wood, but it looks stunning on film when the vassals of Marcus Aurelius parade in front of him to pay homage. The rest of the film is equally impressive, too. I read where a total of 55-acres of outdoor sets were constructed, and frankly, I will take this passé extravagance over the computer-spun realities inflicted on us today. 

Even more impressive is how this film, which is openly bent on grandness, also takes the time to get unimportant details correct. I was pleasantly surprised, for example, to see a lictor standing behind Commodus with his axe of bundled sticks (this is called a fasces in Latin). I doubt many people notice that, but if you are attempting to get it right, actually doing so requires such diligence and care.

If the same attitude was applied to casting, this film might have been more than it is. Two of the critical roles Mann picked absolutely correctly. Alec Guinness is perfect as the wise and moody as Aurelius, the thinking man’s emperor, while Christopher Plummer is delightfully wicked and snide as Commodus, the pompous fool whose inability to impress his father leads to a demented quest for personal glory that eventually threatens the entire Roman way of life. The acting problems begin with Sophia Loren’s barely palatable turn as Lucilla – Aurelius’s daughter – and goes from bad to worse with Stephen Boyd, whose wooden portrayal of a Roman general comes damn close to derailing the audience’s ability to enjoy the film.

What saves the effort is the big ideas wrestled with on the screen. The story, which should be familiar to all, involves a potent mixture of war, intrigue, the attempt by a great man to secure his legacy and his fear of dying and having his life stand for nothing (a timeless concern that haunts us all). Aurelius is only on screen the first hour, but it is his conflict that drives the action here and his alone. The rest of the players are simply reacting to conundrums the great philosopher plays out in his head, while an empire and unknowing mass of people swirl in the whirlwind of unrealized thought and deed that he leaves behind (great men are often agents of chaos, whether they intend it or not).

I have mentioned Gladiator, the film by Ridley Scott, and it goes without saying that I will have to mention it again, for that film borrowed so heavily from Mann's effort that it might not have existed without it (entire scenes and subplots are lifted, literally in total). Gladiator is a good film, and certainly more enjoyable than this effort, but what it added in entertainment, it lost in ideas. Plunging the audience into the sands of the arena might titillate, but it does not intrigue. What exactly was Rome? And why was it so worth fighting and dying for? Gladiator plays at answering those questions, but ends up pursuing an empty notion of revenge with not much else at stake, whereas The Fall of the Roman Empire powerfully explores what is lost when Rome falls (honor, citizenship, a chance to live in relative safety and free from harm). 

That Rome's grandeur is seemingly pulled down by one man is completely inaccurate, historically speaking (Rome flourished well after the 180 AD-ish time period depicted in the film and went on being Rome until at least 476 AD), but it is compelling nonetheless. Plummer's Commodus is manic and desperate, but he is also not his father's son (and he knows this) and he lashes out at the world more from an inability to find a place in it than from in sort of feverish spite. At the same time, Sophie Loren is forced to oppose her brother in order to try to save her father's legacy.  That she winds up as corrupt as Commodus even as she strives for noble purposes is a testament to the film's disturbing message about the collapse of social cohesion. Stephen Boyd attempts to remain true to himself and true to Rome, but in the end, he witnesses his army and its commanders bought off with gold, and the citizens of Rome drunk on the improvised glory of Commodus and his new and idolatrous cult of personality. 


For Boyd it is a frightening moment, one in which he truly becomes a son of Aurelius, for like the departed emperor, his life's work is made meaningless by the whims of a populist mob who has lost all sense of self. For the audience living in uncertain times, both then and now, it is strikes a chord of warning. When a society forgets its pride, when it ceases to defend itself and work toward greater ends, then it truly loses its way and its worth. The penultimate scene, wherein the throne of the empire is auctioned off to the highest bidder, shows how much and how little the title has become, thanks to collective social abrogation Commodus and his reign of terror gave voice to. 

In film-making terms, the real tragedy of The Fall of the Roman Empire is the demise of the type of storytelling it employs and the subsequent absence of ideas it wants to wrestle with. Epics today are back in fashion and many of them are no more compelling than their empty-headed predecessors, thanks I am afraid, to the resounding thud of Mann's Herculean effort made at the box office. And yet, somewhere between the high-mindedness of Mann and the brute force of Scott, there is a great film about a great empire to be made. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone has the courage to attempt it. It would be too difficult to get your arms around and too confusing to today's studio heads and audiences. Therefore, in lieu of better efforts not-to-come, seek out this original and marvel in what it manages to do very right.

Dangerous Ideology

No doubt there are plenty of people who watch 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate today and come away thinking it little more than a period-piece, or a kind of curiosity that chronicles an opaque form of paranoia from the Cold War that seems as alien to them as the once-held belief in the divine right of kings.

However, dismissing John Frankenheimer’s calculated adaptation of Richard Condon’s novel on such grounds is a mistake. For starters, I can think of few other films where the imitation of life is as brilliantly warped and overdone – and at the same time as strangely accurate – as this one. That is, we know now that the Soviet Union and its ill-begotten allies really did believe they could brainwash people in political reeducation camps, a plot point that would seem to be cooked up by a kooky screenwriter. We also know the Central Intelligence Agency experimented on methods to both control minds and resist the mind control efforts of their enemies (the infamous MKULTRA project that included a certain compound that later gained famed as LSD). Conspricacy-laced political thrillers that have just a touch of truth may be common fair these days, but in 1962 – when the majority of Americans still trusted their government – the genre was just beginning to find its own feet.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that The Manchurian Candidate is avante garde filmmaking masquerading as a boorish crowdpleaser (and in doing so, mimicking one of its lead characters quite intentionally). The end-result is a film that may chronicle the dark and often difficult to discern Cold Way conflict better than any other effort, minus Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. Only, unlike Kubrick’s dark and wickedly cynical slice of satire, Frankenheimer plays it straight and serious. Audiences today might snicker at the lengths the Chinese government undertake in the film to train and condition an assassin capable of propelling their candidate to office, but the kernel of truth within what is obviously hyperbole and artistic license is worth mentioning.

The Rosenburgs -- Guilty as Hell

There is little doubt today, thanks to FOIA disclosures and solid historical work by scholars such as Christopher Andrew, that the Soviet Union possessed agents who had thoroughly penetrated the U.S. government in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Indeed, the Soviet espionage apparatus stole what could be viewed as the ultimate secret – and in doing so, reshaped the balance of power in the entire world – when agents affiliated with the infamous Rosenburg couple ferreted out the knowledge needed build an atomic bomb. And if you can steal the power of the sun, how hard could it be to try to shape an election?

The infamous "garden party" with the old ladies

Not for nothing is there a line of dialogue about the Senator Iselin character being more dangerous to America than the Soviets themselves. Harry Truman said almost exactly the same thing about Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his public attacks on the U.S. government, a historical realism definitely reenacted by the Iselin’s character’s drunken, nonsensical allegations throughout the film about the loyalty of his fellow represenatives. The only problem is that Iselin – like the odious McCarthy before him – is correct. There is something wrong with the American government in The Manchurian Candidate, just as there was in the real life American government in the early 1950s (Chambers, Hiss, Rosenburgs et al were all very, very guilty – despite the intellectual cartwheels that attempt to prove otherwise). Condon’s brilliance is take Truman’s statement of disgust and make it into the ultimate nightmare scenario: What if McCarthy was actually an agent of influence, and in being one, campaigning in the open against traitors like himself in order to avoid discovery? 

These are the kind of visceral historical thrills the film produces, but there are others. Besides all the politics and the espionage there is a fundmentally human story, burgeoned by a pair of powerful performances. Angela Lansbury’s portrayal of Mrs. Iselin is a bone-chilling reincarnation of Shakespeare’s twisted Lady MacBeth. She is at once perfect and unsettling, outdoing the Scottish noblewoman, in that she uses and manipulates both her amenable husband and her recalcitrant son. She is all ideology and narcissism, and perhaps the most disturbing part of her portrayal is the realization that partisans such as her, partisans willing to sacrifice everything – family included – to further their aims, are real and remain among us.

Laurence Harvey’s performance as Raymond, her distinctly unlovable son and prodigal son is the film’s other standout – not Frank Sinatra’s turn as the Army Major haunted by what happened in Korea. Harvey is the picture of frustration, the boy whose overly doting mother never allowed him to become a man. When he finds love, she wrecks it. When he finds fame and success, she capitalizes on it for herself. Throughout, he wrestles with great demons, unsure of how and when to act (like another Shakespeare character). With his father dead and Sen. Iselin living in his father’s house, there is an Oedipal striving in Harvey and his outbursts. His love interest is attractive enough, but one cannot help but feel his attraction for her only grew when he learned she is the daughter of his step-father’s fiercest political rival. Becoming involved with her, means he is screwing his step-father and his mother at the same time.

However, the film saves its ultimate irony and its ultimate revenge until the end. By killing his parents, Harvey becomes a real hero in place of the phony one he has been throughout the film. The irony is that it took an act of familial betrayal to get him there. “Poor Raymond,” Sinatra says, summing up a man whose entire life seems to have been burned away by the powerful flame of Lansbury’s insatiable ideology. In this, the film seems to be saying that the most dangerous people are the ones who have nothing but their principles to lose and nothing but the revolution to strive for. A person’s politics and patriotism are one thing – suborning both to some imaginary cause something else entirely. This was the inherent danger of the Cold War and its Marxist idealists. Like the religious fanatics plaguing the world today, they seemed to have no earthly cares. Ideology was everything . . . and I can think of nothing more dangerous. 

Difficult to Dislike

Like climatic battles between two titanic empires, romantic comedies are damn near run things that fail or succeed by the scantest of margins. Miscalculate the levity, make a poor casting choice or choose an inappropriate setting and any effort in this genre can easily become ridiculous, sappy, unfunny – or worst of all, irritating.

 

Thankfully, the convergence of skill and craftsmanship behind Charade make it almost impossible to dislike. The 1963 film boasts a talented cast led by Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, a delightful score and a spy game stratagem that unfolds with exactly the right mixture of playful shenanigans and baited-breath. There is nothing approaching greatness in this movie, but whoever goes looking for greatness in romantic comedies is bound to be disappointed. Fun, formatted with typical cleverness, is more what we are after – and we get to have quite a lot of fun in this semi-serious romp of a picture.

Unfortunately, I suppose some of the tongue-in-cheek that makes Charade such a hoot is lost on the contemporary viewer. Released at virtually the height of the Cold War, a time when both the local cinema and the living room television are alive with spy stories, Charade’s not-so-hidden agenda is levity in the face of overwhelming dread. That director Stanley Donen succeeds so well in satirizing the easily recognizable tropes of the spy genre and the thriller is a testament to precisely how well he understands both. Labeled the “best” Hitchcock film never made by Hitchcock, Charade’s audience is continually asked to follow a film that looks and feels like the great British master’s work right up until the punch lines materialize and burst whatever self-important bubbles were forming.

Parade of Fools.

Joel and Ethan Coen achieved something close to this in 2008’s Burn After Reading, but the Coen duet do not have Donen’s appreciation for the musical rhythms of humor. Donen, the director of the seminal Singin’ in the Rain, knows more about moving humans around the set, and as a result, set-pieces such as the funeral scene in which Hepburn watches in amazement as a parade of oddball characters parade before her eyes unfold with a dizzying feeling of frolic almost completely devoid in the Coen satire.

Hitchcock-ian?

Elsewhere, the mood remains far too light, the plot far too much what-you-see-is-what-you-get for it ever to really be mistaken for Hitchcock, but even so, there are certainly some Hitchcock-ian flourishes on display.  Chief among them, of course, is the fact that the plot revolves around the innocent bystander (Hepburn) who unwillingly becomes immersed in a complicated espionage plot – a setup Hitchcock utilized several different times, each to great effect. The other touch that made me think of Hitch comes when Grant faces down one of the film’s villains on the roof of the hotel where much of the principle action occurs. Part Rear Window, part North by Northwest, the scene unfolds in a wonderful series of lattice-like shadows cast by a neon sign. The roof’s gradual slope to death-by-falling is both obvious and suspenseful at the same time, and the choreography leading up to the inevitable is staged as masterfully as anything Hitchcock did. Other moments, such as the opening at the ski resort, are funnier when viewed from the historical aftermath of the numerous snow scenes in the James Bond franchise we have all loved and endured for more than four decades. And I doubt there is anything more perfect than the gun pointed at Hepburn in the film’s opening few shots.

Always ephemeral.

The timely murder of Hepburn’s husband saves her from agonizing about divorcing him in favor of Grant (who she meets at aforementioned ski resort). The death also launches the film’s action, as we quickly learn the husband was involved in some kind of espionage or criminality plot. What follows is a largely a comedy of errors, in which Hepburn muddles and giggles her way through several acts of spying and a few attempts on her life. Through it all, Grant is conveniently at her side, dashing and indecipherable until virtually the last frame of the film, when his true nature is finally revealed. Even more interestingly, the film takes great pains to chide Grant for being far too old for the petite and always elfin Ms. Hepburn. Grant, who turned the lead in Roman Holiday several years earlier precisely because of the age difference between the two, supposedly insisted the script contain the jokes – and they work precisely because one of Grant’s strengths has always been self-depreciation.  

Everyone involved probably made better pictures, but as a B-side to the rest of their careers, this is not too far off in sheer quality. I enjoyed this film for what it is and throughout felt a twinge of nostalgia and sadness, largely because contemporary attempts to recreate the chemistry that works so well in Charade now seems beyond Hollywood. The occasional moments of slowness – the script, I think, could have been tightened 15 minutes – does not detract from the final product’s overall punch. This is a fun movie, made by skilled people who know how to entertain audiences.

Duty Amongst Desolation

Alone with duty...

The trio of films John Wayne made with legendary director John Ford about the U.S. Calvary in the late 19 th century’s Indian Wars are an odd mix. Unofficially, the three pictures are lumped together as Ford’s “Calvary Trilogy,” but there is little continuity between the individual offerings beyond the setting and the general themes the plots grapple with.

Indeed, watching them back-to-back can confuse. Ford utilizes the same stable of actors in all three efforts, only he inexplicably changes the character’s names and sometimes shifts their roles. For example, in one film a Ben Johnson is a sergeant and a trusted scout, while in another he is a fresh recruit with a penchant for fast riding. So while Johnson’s horsemanship remains constant, his role in the plot is considerably different. 

But trying to reason why Ford recycled plots and shifted actors is wasting energy that is much better spent on what shines through all three efforts. These films are unabashedly patriotic, but they stop well short of jingoism. They are apolitical in the sense that the messiness of what the Indian Wars represent – especially to more contemporary audiences – is never specifically addressed. What is left when all the other ingredients have been boiled away is the complicated essence of masculine duty – a topic not many movies can claim to tackle, especially nowadays when masculinity is almost held in contempt. And Wayne, the quintessential male American archetype, with his wide-legged walk and his languid drawl, is the perfect actor to explore this concept.

In Fort Apache, the first of the three films, Wayne portrays a highly respected combat commander forced to serve under a vain and mildly unscrupulous martinet, played with excellent aplomb by Henry Fonda. The critical conflict is the clash of wills between Wayne and Fonda. Will the former follow the orders of the latter – or will he rebel and lash out? Made long before the 1960s counterculture refashioned American virtue so that shirking authority became a noble enterprise, Wayne spends most of this picture biting his tongue and saluting. The only time he lashes out is when Fonda accuses him of being a coward. A man must accept professional abuse, no matter how misguided, but he is not restrained from responding to a personal attack on his character.

The film’s best moments have nothing to do with the Wayne/Fonda conflict at all. 

More specifically, a great deal of this film unfolds like a novel of manners, in that we are shown how the society of the Calvary functions and what is and what is not permitted. Our main vehicle for this is the courtship of Fonda’s daughter by a young lieutenant whose family background is most decidedly lower class (the courter’s father is the trilogy’s ubiquitous and loveable drunken sergeant). The scene in which Fonda must, in his own eyes, humiliate himself by dancing with the boy’s mother is racked with visual tension that recalls the sensations produced by Edith Warton’s best prose.

A movie of manners.

Fonda’s eventual comeuppance occurs via the inevitable sting of battle. Like Custer, Fonda underestimates his enemy and refuses to listen to his subordinates around him. The result is equally disastrous as what happened in real life at the Little Bighorn, only in Ford’s film the one saving grace seems to Wayne’s fidelity to his commander – despite his commander’s obvious stupidity. There is something of the “The Charge of the Light Brigade” in all of this, but unlike Tennyson's poem, Ford is not interested in the sacrifice the men who died in vain made. Instead, Wayne’s decision to continue serve – no matter what the cost – is what stands out.  

Some rather un-Ford like cynicism even creeps into the end of the picture when Wayne chooses not to refute a newspaperman’s virtual deification of Fonda’s foolishness. Wayne remains focused on his service, and in this regard, seems to operate under the presumption that the truth will not ultimately enable his attempt to fulfill his duty. This is a dangerous maxim to put forward, of course, but in Ford’s hands, it feels more thought-provoking than the “my country right or wrong” phrase that found new life as America descended into Vietnam.

The nuance and characterization that made Fort Apache so interesting are largely absent in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Ford’s second cavalry film. The only one of the three shot in color, this film jettisons the Fonda character and then largely repeats the same plot without him. The main difference is that Wayne is virtually in command this time and he is tested not by another officer, but by events beyond his control (an Indian uprising). Charged with being the guardian for this desolate outpost of civilization, Wayne’s duty is to protect his troop and the White settlers who depend on them for their very existence. However, at the same time, Wayne knows being officer and gentleman means more than just being following orders, and with this in mind, he attempts to fulfill his duty, satisfy his morals and deal as fairly as possible with the Indian aggressors.  

Wayne cleverly avoids an all-out war with the Indians by stealing their horses – itself ironic, given the Old West stereotype that Indians are horse thieves. What Ford wants his audience to understand is that the warrior who finds a way not to fight is every bit as glamorous as the one who charges to certain death. In this sense, the end of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon intentionally unfolds in exactly the opposite fashion of Fort Apache’s ill-fated climax. And unlike Fonda, who is one dimensional and stubborn, Wayne is presented as the complete officer. His solution to the Indian threat protects the American interests he oversees and avoids bloodshed at the same time.

This near-perfect ending matches nicely with the film’s booming Technicolor vistas, but it somehow feels less tangible than the ugly truths we were forced to swallow in Fort Apache’s dénouement. Perhaps, having experience cynicism in the trilogy’s first outing, I was unprepared for Ford’s return to his more typical brand of optimism? 

Rio Grande, the third and final film, is hailed by some as Ford’s not-so-subtle comment on the Korean War. Personally, I think that is something of a stretch. However, this is the only film in which the Indians are presented in evil terms. Wayne also makes what he ultimately judges as mistakes, only to erase his errors – in reality, judgment calls based on incomplete information – with a triumphant charge into an Indian camp.  

Along the way, there is great deal of singing and some of the novel of manners approach explored with such success in Fort Apache returns in the form of Wayne courting Maureen O’Hare, who plays his sassy and ready-for-divorce Southern wife. Wayne’s and O’Hare’s son is also present in the cavalry troop, with Wayne blustering he will not display even an ounce of special treatment toward his offspring. Unfortunately, for all the attempted fireworks, the estranged couple’s interplay never goes anywhere, and as delightful as O’Hare is, we end up feeling like she is there simply because the plot calls for it. Wayne’s son fails to torment him as much as he could, either.

Wayne & Ford on set.

As I already suggested, unlike the previous two films, where the Calvary blunders into a battle it need not fight or avoids unwanted bloodshed through Wayne’s clever plan to steal horses, Rio Grande sees the U.S. soldiers engaged in a moral battle against Indians who have lapsed into cross-border banditry and inexplicably decided to kidnap white children. In the finale, Wayne and his men ride into a village and assault a bevy of Indian warriors who are literally staggeringly drunk on firewater. The children are recovered, the Indians vanquished and back at the Post, O’Hare is suddenly smitten with her wounded husband. All is well that ends well, I suppose, but there is not much drama in what happens here, and given the heights of previous offerings, Rio Bravo ranks as the trilogy’s biggest disappointment.

That Ford clearly decided to make less complicated films after Fort Apache should not surprise. The entire reason he made the trilogy in the first place was to generate enough cash for his studio so he could make The Quiet Man. Accordingly, there is some truth in the argument that this trilogy is formulaic and designed to sell tickets. But to dismiss these films as nothing more than a means to an end would be a massive mistake.

Monument Valley

For starters, we owe Ford a debt of gratitude for dragging the Western out of the Hollywood back-lots and allowing it to breath in the open American air. Monument Valley, where all three films are shot, is a wondrously cinematic, full of barbaric rock formations and dramatic desolation. Without the valley’s austerity, Ford’s clinical exploration of masculinity would fail to impress as much as it does and the sheer danger of the land America’s pioneers were forced to contend with would remain a mystery to filmgoers. 

The actual notion of masculine duty itself has also probably never been given a more thorough treatment than it has in these three pictures, either. By setting politics completely aside and taking his audiences back to a time and place that most have forgot, Ford successfully illustrates the notions of service and heroism. These were men on the edge of the world, and regardless what history would say about them today, they were serving an ideal and safeguarding a way of life in incredibly dangerous and inhospitable places. Being reminded of such service from time to time cannot be a bad thing…