1948 film by John Ford
Fort Apache is a 1948 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda. The film was the first of the director's "Cavalry Trilogy" and was followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), both also starring Wayne.
The screenplay was inspired by James Warner Bellah's short story "Massacre" (1947). The historical sources for "Massacre" have been attributed both to George Armstrong Custer's Battle of Little Bighorn and to the Fetterman Fight, with the character of Col. Thursday being very similar in story and appearance to that of Lt. Howard B. Cushing. The film was one of the first to present an authentic and sympathetic view of Native Americans.
In his review of the DVD release of Fort Apache in 2012, The New York Times movie critic Dave Kehr called it "one of the great achievements of classical American cinema, a film of immense complexity that never fails to reveal new shadings with each viewing" and "among the first 'pro-Indian' Westerns" in its portrayal of indigenous Americans with "sympathy and respect".
The film was awarded the Best Director and Best Cinematography awards by the Locarno International Film Festival of Locarno, Switzerland. Screenwriter Frank S. Nugent was nominated for best screenplay by the Writers Guild of America.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.