Fort Apache

TCM is running a morning and afternoon of Shirley Temple movies tomorrow in honor of her birth anniversary. Among them is Fort Apache, at 2:15 PM.

Temple plays Philadelphia "Phil" Thursday, who is traveling out west to Fort Apache, Arizona Territory, with her father, Lt. Col. Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda), who is going to be the new commander of the fort. The stagecoach gets lost and drops them off at a way station where Phil runs into Lt. Michael O'Rourke (John Agar) who is in the middle of washing up. The lieutenant colonel sees him this way and is none too pleased, even though it's not really O'Rourke's fault. As for Phil, she's already taken a shining to O'Rourke, although Dad is eventually going to forbid her to see young O'Rourke.

Young O'Rourke is fresh out of West Point and also going to Fort Apache, where his father, a sergeant major (Ward Bond) is stationed. So Thursday requisitions O'Rourke's trael and they get to the fort together, where Thursday finds Capt. Youk (John Wayne) in temporary command and an atmosphere that's certainly more casule than what you'd find back east. Thursday is none too pleased at this, too.

In fact, Thursday seems none too pleased by anything. He's a by-the-book martinet who has seemingly never been west, and certainly not in territory where there have recently been Indian uprisings, with the Apache under Cochise (Miguel Inclan) being the most dangerous. In fact, there are rumblings that Cochise might be leading his Apaches back into Arizona since the Mexicans don't really want them in Mexico, either.

Lt. Col. Thursday sends York to meek Cochise along with Sgt. Beaufort (Pedro Armendariz), since Beaufort and Cochise both speak Spanish. Not that Thursday wants it this way, but York has been out west longer and knows how things work with Cochise as the two have had dealings before. Still, Thursday eventually decides that he's going to do things his way, regardless of what reality dictates, and decides he's going to launch a ridiculously ill-fated attack on the Apache who badly outnumber the Cavalry.

Fort Apache is well-made, although not particularly my favorite film, in part because this is the sort of western that's not my favorite genre, and in part because of the direction of John Ford. It doesn't help that Fonda's character is such an asshole that you want somebody to bring up Nuremberg and not having to follow illegal orders, even though the action takes plays 70 years before World War II. Fonda does a good job; it's just that his character is so hateable.

I'm certain, however, that people who like westerns will love Fort Apache. In addition to being on tomorrow, you can also find it easily on DVD.