Fort Apache

Year:  1948

Director:  John Ford

Screenplay:  Frank S. Nugent, based on the short story "Massacre" by James Warner Bellah

Starring:  John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple

Running Time:  125 minutes

Genre:  Western

Arrogant, embittered Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday (Fonda) and his teenage daughter, Philadelphia (Temple), arrive at Fort Apache, an isolated U. S. Cavalry outpost, where Thursday is to assume command.  While Philadelphia adapts well to life at the Fort, Thursday's high-handed manner and strict adherence to military rule and discipline, alienate him from his troops, particularly his second in command Captain Kirby Yorke (Wayne).  To make matters worse, Thursday's ignorance and bigotry towards the indigenous Apache tribes threatens to lead to war.

This was the first of director John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", which also included She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), both of which also starred John Wayne.  For the first hour or so, the film feels almost like a comedy, as the strict, strait-laced Lieutenant Colonel finds himself at odds with the ragtag bunch of soldiers he finds himself commanding, while his daughter falls for a dashing young officer (played by John Agar), much to her father's displeasure.  However, it becomes more somber and surprisingly dark as it goes along.   Despite having star billing, John Wayne really has more of a supporting role here, with Henry Fonda's Owen Thursday being the main character.  Thursday was a General in the Civil War and is bitter at being busted down to the ranks and posted to some isolated fort in the middle of nowhere.  From his appearance here, it seems that Thursday was at best an armchair general, who might be able to recite chapter and verse of Genghis Khan's campaigns, but is terrible at the business of real leadership.  His attitude towards the local Native American tribes, in whom he is completely uninterested, veers from hostility to contempt.  In fact it's his daughter Philadelphia who is far better able to adapt to life at the Fort and, while he immediately dismisses the Fort and it's surroundings, Philadelphia is interested and curious about the country and the people who live there.  Fort Apache is notable for Westerns of it's time in taking a sympathetic view of the Native Americans.  While it is still very much from the view of the white settlers, the Native Americans are willing to come to a peaceful solution and their demands are perfectly reasonable, it's Thursday's racism that escalates the conflict.  The film was shot in Ford's favourite location, Monument Valley.  The film takes it's time to get into it's stride and the story doesn't really get into it's stride until it's second hour.  The climax is well staged and exciting and there is a moving epilogue which shows how the myth of the West was being written even while it was happening.  Henry Fonda is good as Thursday, managing to humanise a pretty unlikeable character.  John Wayne does well as Yorke, trying his best to counter Thursday's bigotry and avoid disaster for all concerned.  Shirley Temple is good as Philadelphia, and it is a pity that she isn't even more to do.   

The Tin Star

Year of Release:  1957

Director:  Anthony Mann

Screenplay:  Dudley Nichols, from a story by Joel Kane and Barney Slater

Starring:  Henry Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Betsy Palmer

Running Time:  93 minutes

Genre:  Western

The Old West:  Bounty hunter Morg Hickman (Fonda) arrives in a small town to collect his latest bounty.  While waiting for his claim to be processed, he befriends Nona Mayfield (Palmer) a young woman who is treated with contempt by the townspeople due to her son Kip (British actor Michel Ray), whose father was Native American.  Hickman also forms a grudging almost-friendship with the town's decent, but inexperienced young sheriff Den Owens (Perkins), who Hickman helps build his confidence and improve his shooting skills.  When one of the town's most beloved citizens is shot dead, Hickman and Owens find themselves caught between a pair of ruthless bandits and a violent posse.  

This is a solid old-school Western.  It moves along at a good pace, empty of inessentials and, while the outcome is never really in doubt, it's final half hour or so is extremely suspenseful.  Henry Fonda, with his weathered face and sad eyes, plays the grizzled bounty hunter with a past whose hard shell of weary cynicism hides his innate decency.  Anthony Perkins, who will forever be known as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), plays the idealistic and courageous, but naive and inexperienced sheriff with the blend of nervy energy and boyish charm that he would bring to his most famous role.  Anthony Perkins was a good actor, with a strong screen presence, but never really became a major star because he became so associated with Norman Bates, although, to be fair, it is an iconic performance.  Betsy Palmer, who, like Perkins, became something of a horror icon for her role as Pamela Voorhees (Jason's mum) in Friday the 13th (1980), and does well as the winsome single mother who wins Henry Fonda's heart, and keeps the home fires burning while the guys are away playing cowboys.  Anthony Mann had a reputation for more psychologically complex Westerns, many of which starred James Stewart, who was the original choice to play the Henry Fonda role.  Here, the characters have flaws, they do have complexity and are more than the cliches that you often find in these films.  There is also a message about the evils of racism and mob justice, although it is still a product of its time.  The script by Dudley Nichols (who wrote the Western classic Stagecoach (1939)) from a story by Joel Kane and Barney Slater was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Screenplay (if your interested it lost out to George Wells for Designing Woman, a film which I had never heard of).  The film is well made, and the action is exciting, and the film's California locations are impressive.  Western veteran Lee Van Cleef has a supporting role as a bandit.           

Anthony Perkins and Henry Fonda in The Tin Star

12 Angry Men

 Year of Release: 1957

Director:  Sidney Lumet

Screenplay:   Reginald Rose

Starring:  Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, Jack Warden

Running Time:  96 minutes

Genre:  Courtroom drama

In a New York City courthouse, a young Puerto Rican man is on trial for the murder of his father.  As the all-male jury retire to consider their verdict it appears to be an open and shut case.  However one of the jurors (Fonda) is not so sure, and believes that there may be room for reasonable doubt.

Originally produced as a television play, this is one of the classic courtroom dramas, even though the trial itself is never actually shown.  Aside from some brief scenes at the beginning and end of the film, the entire story takes place in the cramped, claustrophobic confines of the jury room and, aside from a brief dialogue exchange at the film's conclusion, none of the characters are named.  The film brings up themes of racism and classism which are sadly still relevant today, as the characters' preconceptions and prejudices are revealed.  It's about men who are complete strangers to each other, who are forced together and have to reach an agreement, and we get the group dynamics, some characters are more dominant and some more passive, and alliances are formed and break apart.  The film is set during a swelteringly hot day, and there is a real sense of claustrophobia, heightened by the fact that the camera movies from wide angle images at the beginning of the film to increasingly tight close-ups in on the individuals as the story progresses.  It features some powerful performances from a talented, if not particularly diverse, cast.  Henry Fonda is fantastic in the lead role, as the reasonable juror who just wants his fellow jurors to discuss the case and not just immediately vote to convict.  The film has been referenced and parodied countless times since its release, and was remade in 1997.

   12 Angry Men

You Only Live Once

Year of Release:  1937

Director:  Fritz Lang

Screenplay:  Gene Towne and Charles Graham Baker

Starring:  Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane

Running Time:  86 minutes

Genre:  Crime, drama, romance

Eddie Taylor (Fonda) is a convicted bank robber who is released from prison and tries to go straight with his new wife, Joan (Sidney), secretary to the Public Defender who represented Eddie at his trial.  However hard he tries, Eddie comes to feel that he can't catch a break, and finds himself drawn back to his old life with violent and tragic consequences.

Director Fritz Lang had made his reputation in Germany with such classics as Metropolis (1926) and M (1931) before emigrating after the Nazis came to power and eventually ended up in America.  His first American film, Fury (1936), attracted praise from critics but was severely tampered with by the studio.  This film, loosely based on the exploits of legendary outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, is an early example of what would become known as "film noir", a bleak crime drama, with a doom-laden atmosphere, and desperate characters who, despite their best efforts, are destined for nothing but a bad end.   The film also has a still pertinent message about the difficulties of ex-prisoners to find a place in society even after serving their sentence.  The film features a powerful, haunted performance from Henry Fonda and a great performance from Sylvia Sidney as the one person who stands by Eddie, even after her world starts to crash down around her.  Lang was a consummate visual stylist who honed his craft during the German Expressionist movement, and the film features some startling images, notably a jailbreak sequence, shot with thick rolling smoke and stark, bright shafts of light, with minimal sets.  Despite concessions to the censors of the time (Lang was forced to cut fifteen minutes from the film before it could be released) this is still a shocking and troubling film.

Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda are on the run in You Only Live Once

The Ox-Bow Incident

Year:  1943
Director:  William A. Wellman
Screenplay:  Lamar Trotti, based on the novel The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Starring:  Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn
Running Time:  75 minutes
Genre:  Western, drama

This film takes the traditional Western movie and turns it into a bleak morality tale, which savagely condemns mob rule and vigilante violence.  Set in Nevada, 1885, the film opens with cowboy Gil Carter (Fonda) and his friend Art Croft (Harry Morgan) returning to the small town of Bridger's Wells.  The town has been suffering due to large numbers of cattle-rustling incidents, and the inhabitants are resentful and angry.  News reaches the town that a popular rancher has been murdered and his herd stolen.  Despite the protestations of Carter, preacher Sparks (Leigh Whipper) and elderly store-keeper Davies (Harry Davenport) a posse is soon formed to go after the killers.  Carter, Sparks and Davies are worried that the posse will turn into a lynch-mob, and execute any suspects themselves without any trial or due process of law.  The three protestors join the posse in the hope of talking them out of any violent action, but it may already be too late.

The studio insisted that this film was shot cheaply on studio sets rather than on location, and this actually benefits the film, because the small studio space makes the film more intimate and claustrophobic than it might have been on an expansive location.  There is also very little of the traditional Western action, the film mostly being driven by character and dialogue.  Even the setting is different from the traditional oat opera, being mostly set at night, with repeated references to the bitter cold.  The characters are well drawn and even minor characters are developed with believable reasons for their actions (or inactions).  A haunted looking Fonda gives a great performance as a character who at first appears to be a mindless saloon-brawler but turns out to be one of the voices of conscience.     

Packing a lot into it's brief run time, this depicts a shockingly bleak and cynical view of human nature, and marks a turning point for the American Western genre, when it began to grow and develop and turn from romanticised adventure stories into a mature and valid genre which was capable of dealing straight on with mature, adult themes.

It's judgement day in The Ox-Bow Incident