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A British outpost in 1890s India, "the gateway to it all," eagerly surveyed by the newly-arrived tyke (Shirley Temple) through fresh American eyes. (She witnesses arrests as soon as she steps off the train, though her mind is mainly on the particulars of her guardian's kilt: "How do you keep the mosquitoes from biting your knees?") Mother (June Lang) is a ruined widow courted by a dashing lieutenant (Michael Whalen), Grandfather (C. Aubrey Smith) is a gruff colonel with little use for kids. Her best friend at her new home turns out to be the burly sergeant (Victor McLaglen) whose morning routine includes tossing the bugler out the window and turning the barracks sink into a private bathtub, big galoot and tiny lass march around the compound so much that the seasoned grunts are seen soaking their feet afterward. "Private Winkie it is! A full-fledged soldier of the Queen." A vivacious reshaping of The Black Watch, Kipling revised by John Ford to accommodate his precocious star's repertoire and his own ambivalence toward community and duty. An up-angle camera for the ingenuous gaze (Lean studies many of its effects for Oliver Twist), "Comin' Thro' the Rye" softly wafting from the ballroom before a raid by the insurgent leader (Cesar Romero). A sublime unbroken moment, Temple's hushed "Auld Lang Syne" for a mortally wounded McLaglen, Ford dollies in from a two-shot as the hand holding the flower goes limp and pans to the bagpiper who steps behind a slatted scrim to sound the requiem. Colonialism makes no sense to the pocket-sized mediatrix, she enjoys a nap after halting a war. "Now we shall talk, Colonel... but quietly." Fort Apache brings back the grown-up moppet to ponder the end of idealism. With Constance Collier, Douglas Scott, Gavin Muir, Willie Fung, Brandon Hurst, Lionel Pape, Bunny Beatty, Clyde Cook, and Mary Forbes. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |