She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is a 1949 Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne.
The film was the second of Ford's trilogy of films focusing on the US Cavalry
(and the only one in color); the other two films were Fort Apache (1948) and Rio Grande (1950).
With a budget of $1.6 million, the film was one of the most expensive Westerns of the time,
but became a major hit for RKO and remains a popular classic today.
The film is renowned for its breathtaking views of Monument Valley located on the Navajo reservation,
at the northern edge of Arizona; cinematographer Winton Hoch
won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography.
Ford and Hoch based much of the film's imagery on the paintings and sculptures of Frederic Remington.
As a cinematographer, Winton Hoch is perhaps best remembered for one single scene in this film:
as a line of cavalry ride through the desert, a thunderstorm grows on the horizon.
Ironically, Hoch had filed a letter of complaint against Ford with his craft union over the filming of this scene;
as the storm gathered, Hoch began to pack up the cameras, but Ford ordered him to keep shooting,
knowing the scene would look magnificent in technicolor on the silver screen.
Hoch argued that there was not enough light to get a decent shot, and more importantly,
the cameras were potential lightning rods as the storm swept over them.
Ford ignored Hoch's complaints, and the scene was shot as the thunderstorm rolled in,
eventually soaking the cast and crew with rain.
The cast and crew lived in relatively primitive conditions in Monument Valley,
with many sleeping in dirt floor cabins and sharing cold water drum showers.
This perhaps accounts for the speedy pace accomplished during shooting,
and the film was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.
Director Ford initially was uncertain who to cast in the crucial role of Brittles,
but knew that he did not want John Wayne for the part...
until he saw Wayne's performance in Red River,
and realized he had grown considerably as an actor, and was now capable
of playing a character with subtle nuances.
This was one of the performances which Wayne was proudest of for the rest of his life,
although he maintained that Ford made a mistake in not concluding the film with Brittles
retiring from the Army and riding off into the sunset.
Instead, Ford insisted on tacking on a less bittersweet ending,
with Brittles recalled back into the cavalry and given a promotion.
The film is named after a song common in the U.S. military, "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon",
which is still used today to keep marching cadence. It is a variant of the song "All Around My Hat".
Part 2 of the Trilogy, once again shows how brilliant Ford, was with this subject.
His cast for this film, is magnificent.
Duke, once again, solid as a rock, as a commander, and a leader of men.
With no love interest to weigh him down, he turns in a wonderful performance,
as Nathan Brittles, his portrayal is one of the finest of his career.
It was a very unlike Duke role, calling him to be passive, and reflective.
It also further developed him as as as American icon, as Brittles was an ideal leader, his speech,
"Lest we forget" being magical.
His "I'll be back.I'll be back", conjuring up the same sort of leadership and authority, as MacArthur.
Duke handles the part of an older man well, later admitting, that this, is probably his favourite film.
His mature role(watching ,over younger love lives), was a role he would adapt as his own, in his later movies.
Victor, turned in a fantastic performance, and I just laugh,
at every minute he spends on the silver screen, he had such a presence.
Ben Johnson, also, was just great, and acted well above, his status.
Joanne Dru, and the other Ford players, put in excellent performances.
This was to be the first time, that Ford had filmed in Monument Valley in Colour,,
with the awesome scene, of marching through the lightning, gaining cameraman Winton Hoch, an Academy award.
The film was an immediate hit, and it was one of the years leaders at the box office,
and critics response was thus,
Quotethe finest outdoor picture""another of John Ford's classics.
User Review
QuoteDisplay More"...wherever they rode, whatever they fought for, that place became the United States."
24 August 2005 | by bkoganbing (Buffalo, New York)
The second of John Ford's cavalry trilogy that deals with the life of the professional soldier is the only one that was photographed in color. Lucky are we, the cinema fans two generations away.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon has John Wayne the embodiment of the thirty year army man. The year of the action of the film which is 1876 has Wayne mentioning in passing that he was at the Battle of Chapultepec in the Mexican War which started in 1846. Wayne's Nathan Brittles was by his account a dirty shirt tailed runaway from his father's Ohio farm when he joined the army. And now he's reached mandatory retirement. He's married and has had a family who he's lost for reasons John Ford doesn't explain in the film. But Wayne dutifully, "makes his report" at their gravesides every night he's at the post.
Wayne's seen a lot of military history and a lot of tragedy. With no family left, the United States Cavalry is his home and family. He doesn't like the idea of retiring at all. In a later Ford film, The Long Gray Line, Martin Maher says that all he knows and holds dear is at West Point. Wayne could have said that line himself here.
Even though George O'Brien is the commanding officer at Fort Stark, Wayne is the father figure for the whole post. And not like some of the others don't behave like children. The whole romantic rivalry between John Agar and Harry Carey, Jr. over Joanne Dru seems pretty childish. Cute while in the safety of the post, but when out on a mission downright dangerous and Wayne like the good father scolds his kiddies.
With some makeup to grey his hair and wrinkle him a might, Wayne turns in one of his finest performances on the screen. Harry Carey, Jr. wrote what is probably the most evenly balanced portrayal of the Duke in his memoirs In the Company of Heroes. They didn't always get along, but Carey says Wayne was an inspiration to him and the other younger cast members. In fact during the scene with the gunrunners Paul Fix and Grant Withers being killed in the Indian camp while Wayne, Carey, and Agar watch on the ridge, the whole idea for the chaw of tobacco bit came from Carey himself, but that Wayne encouraged the improvisation as he was wont to do.
Other than the Duke, my favorite portrayal in the film is that of Ben Johnson as Sergeant Tyree. Wayne recognizes in him a younger version of himself. In fact Tyree is a former Confederate Army captain, a fact brought out in the death scene of "Trooper Smith" another former Confederate who in fact was a general in that army. Ben Johnson was a real cowboy, a horse wrangler who John Ford gave a chance to act. He graced many a film with his presence and won himself an Oscar to cap his career in The Last Picture Show.
Like in Fort Apache and Rio Grande, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is the story of the professional soldier and the sacrifices he makes when he gives up his civilian status to serve his country. It's a universal theme, not just confined to the USA. No one embodied that theme better than did John Wayne as Nathan Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.