ford

THE FLICKS: John Ford’s career as a director started during the silent era and flourished until the end of the studio system. He picked up four Oscars along the way and literally defined how our culture viewed the American West. Along with Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Welles, his name pops up as one of the most respected directors of all time. So it’s about damn time someone gave him his own box set. Warner Bros. did even better than that, they gave him two. Consisting of five of Ford’s lesser known entries, The John Ford Collection works as a sort of supplement to the more established classics collected in the John Ford/John Wayne Set, which includes landmarks like Stagecoach and The Searchers. Here we see Ford experimenting with his style (The Informer), stretching his oeuvre (Mary of Scotland) and righting old wrongs (Cheyenne Autumn). And while none of the films are as cohesive or brilliant as the director’s best, they are recommended stops for fans of Ford and cinema history in general. The Lost Patrol (1934) works from an intriguing set-up as British soldiers find themselves under attack from Arab guerilla forces deep in the Mongolian desert. Boris Karloff plays a religious zealot, Victor McClaglen is the tough-as-nails sergeant, while the rest of the cast is filled out by colorful characters destined to become casualties of war. The landscapes (shot in Arizona) are beautifully composed, hinting at Ford’s Monument Valley compositions to come, and the action is sharp and surprising. But much of the film is made up of confessional scenes between the doomed soldiers, made all the more hokey by a patriotic Max Steiner score. Still, the film has its moments, particularly those involving an over-the-top Karloff. The Informer (1935) is Ford’s most acclaimed film not featuring cowboys and Indians. Set in depression-era Ireland, Victor McLaglen stars as Gypo Nolan, one of the most memorable characters this side of Travis Bickle. A well-meaning thug of a man, Gypo rats out a fellow member of the Irish Republican Army for 20 pounds, but the shame and guilt of this act send him on an all-night bender, culminating in a painful spiritual and physical retribution. McLaglen has a gem of a character to work with and makes the most of it. His one-man-show performance is unlike anything else produced in the era. And Ford matches this with innovative German Expressionism-inspired photography, particularly in the first act; shooting his characters through a sea of fog, harsh backlights and hard angles. Although, elements of this style would appear later in Ford’s work, no other film in his canon goes this far in emulating the directors he so admired like F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. Mary of Scotland (1936) finds the director working in an atypical genre (the costume drama), but still managing to bring much of his expected “folksy” charm and stylistic continuity. Katherine Hepburn stars as the exiled queen returning to her homeland to claim the throne from the illegitimate Elizabeth. Based on a stage play, the film is talky and a bit flat, with only Hepburn’s flashes of fiery temper to draw out much interest in the main story. But Ford inserts his own touches (mostly in the form of some mouthy Scotsman) that are reminiscent of his later Western characters that help make the era accessible. Jumping ahead a few decades, Sergeant Rutledge (1960) is a showcase for the acting talents and physique of frequent Ford player Woody Strode, the black actor who would later make a memorable cameo in Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West. As a “buffalo soldier” put on trial for the rape and murder of a white girl, Rutledge is defended by a noble Lieutenant (Jeffery Hunter) who goes out on a limb to prove the man’s innocence. The trial is a frame for flashbacks that tell the story of Rutledge’s rescue of a rancher’s daughter and leadership during an Apache attack, among other acts of bravery. The film’s message can be heavy-handed at times, but Strode brings a hard-chiseled sense of duty to his performance, representing the contribution of African-Americans (then and now) with quiet dignity. Ford’s staging during an attack on an abandoned train station is genuinely creepy and his photography of Strode is nothing short of mythic. John Ford’s final say on the Western was Cheyenne Autumn (1964), a make-good of sorts for all the years of Hollywood abuse suffered by the Native Americans. As such, the civil rights angle undercuts Ford’s usual gift for storytelling, but you won’t find a film that takes better advantage of the director’s skill with landscapes and endless vistas. Following the 1500-mile trek of a band of Cheyenne from the white-man’s boundaries of their arid reservation to the fertile Yellowstone valley, Richard Widmark stars as a sympathetic military man charged with bringing the tribe back. Jimmy Stewart also makes an appearance as Wyatt Earp during a prolonged Dodge City segment wedged awkwardly into the film. Cheyenne Autumn seems forced next to Ford’s true classics, almost as if Hollywood demanded an epic coda to the director’s career, even though 1960’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance wrapped things up nicely. With a funereal pace and bland characters, the film’s saving grace is Ford’s sweeping photography and flashes of charm. THE FEATURES: Only one film in the set gets the real WB special edition treatment and that’s Cheyenne Autumn, which looks simply stunning in its Technicolor brilliance and 5.1 sound. Also included is a valuable commentary track from Ford historian Joseph McBride and a vintage featurette. The Informer features a new featurette, Out of the Fog, with comments from critics and filmmakers about the profound influence the film had on cinema. The other three films include only a trailer, with the main feature looking fair (The Lost Patrol) to downright fabulous (Sgt. Rutledge). However Ford fans should be aware that Mary of Scotland and Sergeant Rutledge are exclusive to the set and not available separately.