I Watch Movies: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

General Custer and his men have been killed at Little Bighorn. The Native Americans have risen and the narrator tells us that ten thousand of them are prepared to strike, cutting the stagecoach routes and driving the settlers out.

Well then.

Captain Brittles is close to retirement, and takes his troop of cavalry out on one last mission. To discourage the Cheyenne and Arapho who have left the reservation, and also escort the commanding officer’s wife and niece to catch a stagecoach back east out of danger.

He fails.

His two lieutenants are rivals for the niece’s favours. His chief scout is a proud former confederate soldier. His first sergeant will retire two weeks after him and is a comedy drunk Irishman.

The film looks really good and there’s some nice cavalry bits, including more than one scene when they’re walking their horses. And to Brittles credit he tries to resolve the situation without fighting, with minimum violence. As though sending them back to the reservation is a good solution. But if ten thousand Native Americans had driven the settlers out what would happen next? The US would raise an army ten times as big.

Anyway it wraps up with an exciting action sequence and all the surviving white characters getting a nice ending.

Watch This: It’s a classic John Ford/John Wayne Cavalry Western
Don’t Watch This: If you’ve seen enough un-reflective Westerns