John Ford’s continuing war with the Red Man and his romance with the United States Cavalry, a basic strategy which has paid off several times previously, show few signs of wear and tear in “Rio Grande.”
For Mr. Ford’s vendetta against the Apaches and his predilection for the wide open spaces of the post-Civil War West is just as gratifying in the pseudo-historical adventure which was unveiled at the Mayfair on Saturday, as they were in the various cinema campaigns the director has waged in the past. He is traveling a deeply rutted road in spinning a familiar story of military duty versus the dictates of the heart. But the horsemanship never was better, the Indians more dastardly and the cavalry never answered a bugle call more quickly.
To be specific, Mr. Ford herein is dealing with Colonel Yorke, a tough swordsman who finds that soldiering can be pretty frustrating. There are orders from top brass prohibiting the pursuit of marauding Apaches across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Then there is the matter of his son, a stripling he hasn’t seen in fifteen years, who is flunked out of West Point, enlists and is assigned to the colonel’s regiment. Then again, there is his estranged wife, a Southern lady still bearing a smoldering resentment against her mate for having burned down the family mansion during the unpleasantness between the States, who is on hand to try and wean her offspring away from the Army life.
Suffice it to say that the colonel, with an assist from none other than General Sheridan—who happens to be the colonel’s pal ever since that march down the Shenandoah Valley—routs the Reds. His son, it might be added, wins his spurs (figuratively speaking) and the colonel’s lady begins to see eye to eye with her husband and the Union—beg pardon—United States Army.Despite the fact that this ungallant observer occasionally was roubled during the unfolding of this father-son relationship by strange reminiscences of such films as “Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” these were random thoughts completely dispelled by actionful sequences set against a background of sweeping mesas and towering buttes.
Include among the latter an Apache raid of the outpost to free their imprisoned tribesmen, an attack of a wagon train bearing the fort’s women and children and the climactic assault by the regiment on the Indians’ hideout.Obviously realizing that he could not employ boys to do men’s jobs, Mr. Ford used, for the most part, case-hardened veterans who have aided him in other footnotes to history.
John Wayne is fine as the colonel, a taciturn fighting man, who loves his wife and son but one who is ready to state that “on the official records you’re my son, on this post you’re just a trooper.” Maureen O’Hara is decorative as his wife and Claude Jarman Jr. does a competent stint as the son determined to make good. Add also, the workmanlike portrayals of Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr., as Jarman’s soldier-sidekicks; Victor McLaglen, in the familiar role of a hard Irish sergeant major, and J. Carrol Naish, as the brooding General Sheridan.
Most of the lapses between fights are relegated to the singing of The Sons of the Pioneers. Mighty pleasant it is, too, and calculated to please lovers of the Western-type ballad with such numbers as “Aha San Antone” and “My Gal Is Purple,” and the Gaelic contingent with such items as “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” and “Down by the Glen Side.”Despite General Sheridan’s pensive aside, “I wonder what history will say about this,” Mr. Ford needn’t worry. Chances are his public will eat it up.
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