SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON Movie Review
1949 John Ford
Despite a nearly non-existent plot, the second installment of John Ford's “cavalry trilogy” is the strongest part. It is the only one of the three films made in color and Ford gets superb work from two of his favorite collaborators, John Wayne and Monument Valley.
A voice-over prologue sets the scene: “Custer is dead and around the bloody garden of the immortal 7th Cavalry lie 212 officers and men. The Sioux and Cheyenne are on the warpath. By military telegraph the news of the Custer massacre is flashed along the long lonely miles to the Southwest. From the Canadian border to the Rio Bravo, 10,000 Indians—Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, Sioux, and Apaches—under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, Gall and Crow King are uniting in a common war against the United States Cavalry.” Ford sticks to that tone and point of view for the rest of the film. This is not a dispassionate view of the settlement of the West. It's about a war; it's about the winners of the war.
Capt. Nathan Brittles (John Wayne) is six days from retirement at Fort Stark when he's sent out on patrol with about 100 troopers. His mission is to reconnoiter Indian activity and to escort young Olivia Dandridge (Joanne Dru) to the stagecoach so she can leave the increasingly dangerous area. During the patrol, the conventional villains—the Indians and the greedy connivers who sell them rifles and whiskey—are dispensed with in short order, almost disdainfully. To Ford, they're unimportant. He's much more interested in showing the cavalry engaged in its everyday work. Though a few scenes revolve around whooping, hostile Indians chasing the heroic Sgt. Tyree (Ben Johnson), many more are simple shots of the column of riders crossing Monument Valley, Utah.
That incredible landscape is displayed with all the drama that its changeable light and weather can provide. The complex relationship between the land and the sky crowded with massive thunderheads makes the backdrop as important as the human characters. (Having seen Monument Valley go from bright sunlight to snow, hail, and sleet in less than half an hour, I can vouch for the accuracy of Ford's vision.) Director of photography Winston Hoch won a well-deserved Oscar for his work.
When the filmmakers do turn to other aspects of the traditional plot, their efforts are less than inspired. Though it's part of the title, a romantic triangle involving two younger officers is a weak subplot, and the concluding barroom brawl feels obligatory. The scenes of Brittle at his family's graves where he talks to his dead wife are much more authentic and moving. The emotion behind them is real and it's reflected in the theme of reconciliation between North and South within the cavalry ranks. That's what Ford really cares about, as the final voice-over narration makes clear: “So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the 50-cents a day professionals riding the outposts of a nation from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were always the same—men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
Cast: John Wayne (Capt. Nathan Brittles), Joanne Dru (Olivia Dandridge), John Agar (Lt. Flint Cohill), Ben Johnson (Sgt. Tyree), Harry Carey Jr. (Lt. Pennell), Victor McLaglen (Sgt. Quincannon), Mildred Natwick (Mrs. Abby Allshard), George O'Brien (Maj. Mac All-shard), Arthur Shields (Dr. O'Laughlin), Noble Johnson (Red Shirt), Harry Woods (Karl Rynders), Michael Dugan (Sgt. Hochbauer), Jack Pennick (Sgt. Major), Paul Fix (Rynder's partner), Francis Ford (Barman), Cliff Lyons (Trooper Cliff), Tom Tyler (Cpl. Mike Quayne), Chief John Big Tree (Pony That Walks); Written by: Frank Nugent, Laurence Stallings; Cinematography by: Winton C. Hoch, Charles P. Boyle; Music by: Richard Hageman. Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper, RKO Radio Pictures, Argosy. Awards: Academy Awards '49: Best Color Cinematography. Running Time: 93 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV.