Fort Apache (film)

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 and the Battle of Little Bighorn and to the Fetterman Fight. The film was one of the first to present an authentic and sympathetic view of the Native Americans involved in the battle (Apache in the film, Sioux in the real battles).

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

After the American Civil War, highly respected veteran Captain Kirby York (John Wayne) is expected to replace the outgoing commander at Fort Apache, an isolated U.S. cavalry post. York had commanded his own regiment during the Civil War and was well-qualified to assume permanent command. To the surprise and disappointment of the company, command of the regiment was given to Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda). Thursday, a West Point graduate, was a general during the Civil War. Despite his Civil War combat record, Lieutenant Colonel Thursday lacks experience with the Indians he is expected to oversee, and is an incompetent, arrogant and egocentric officer.

Fort Apache

Fort Apache may refer to:

Places

Military

Entertainment

Film

Fort Apache (hostile place)

Fort Apache is, metaphorically, a building, complex, or defensive site providing shelter from hostile action in the form of crime (in police drama) or native insurrection or enemy attack (in John Ford movies).

The metaphor is now used by military and police to refer to a post which is beset/besieged. Recent examples may be found in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another example is "Fort Apache, The Bronx", a name used in the past for the NYPD's 41st Precinct Station House at 1086 Simpson Street in the Bronx and the 1981 movie named for it.

See also

References

Fort Apache Studios

Fort Apache Studios is a New England recording studio focusing on alternative rock sessions produced there since 1986.

The studio was first located at 169 Norfolk Avenue, a warehouse in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Fort Apache relocated its facilities above the Rounder Records warehouse and offices on Camp Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1988. In 1995, a larger studio was built a block away, on Edmunds Street in Cambridge, MA. In 2002, the company moved the studio from Massachusetts into space leased in an old hotel called The Windham, in Bellows Falls, Vermont. In 2007 operations in Bellows Falls were suspended and Smith moved the studio and management offices to his farm nearby in New Hampshire.

The studio was initially built by a collective begun in 1985 by musician/producer Joe Harvard and members of a band called the Sex Execs: engineers Paul Q. Kolderie, Sean Slade, and Jim Fitting. Harvard briefly became sole owner, and the studio became very active recording Boston-area indie-rock groups in 1986. The studio soon upgraded its early 8-track Roxbury facilities to 16-track equipment.