Popular Western Films: "My Darling Clementine" (1946), "Fort Apache" (1948), "3 Godfathers" (1948) & "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).
Interesting Fact: Ford became very rich by this time and had purchased a 106' ketch he renamed the Araner. Unannounced to his crew of friends, Ford would use his boating trips as light reconnaissance in order to keep an eye of the Japanese fleet prior to WWII.
Western Awards: For "My Darling Clementine" (1948) he received the silver ribbon from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists. On that same year, he was given the Best Director award from the Locarno International Film Festival for "Fort Apache" (1948).
"Occasionly you get some luck in pictures, more occasionly you have bad luck. If something happens that wasn't premeditated... photograph it."
1940 was another great year for John Ford. He ended the thirties on a high note and entered the forties off the scale. He became a frequent winner at the Oscar's and his awards were piling up. But with the possibility of a world war on the horizon, he found himself working for the military. Since he was a child he had wanted to be in the Navy and in 1934 he was commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserves.
It was after the making of "How Green Was My Valley (1941), that he was set to organize the Field Photographic Unit. His orders were to document the Navy's involvement in WWII. Through this work he was able to film the Battle of Midway as it happened and in turn won an Oscar for his work. In 1945, as the war was coming to a close, Ford reluctantly returned to making movies. The film that would be his returning debut was the war classic "They Were Expendable" (1945). The war had effected Ford and you can see traces of it in this film. The picture would also star Wayne and restart their work together.
The film was not as successful as had been expected, for America had slowly drifted away from being interested in the sacrifices of war. With this failure, he returned to westerns and his move turned out to be an effective decision. With his return to Monument Valley, Ford pulled out one hit after another once again. His success was not by accident. Each story gave you multiple dimensions, while one moment you are in awe of the backdrop and then suddenly you are zoomed into the individual lives of each character. His people were real and they had emotions, their stories would have been effective in any setting, but no one had achieved it as well as Ford in a western.
With his film "Fort Apache" (1948), Ford revealed an interesting concept to Americans. For a man who had seen death and destruction, he came to realize that we become more interested in the myth than the reality. This would be a constant theme throughout his films, and it wasn't until "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) that he portrayed it plainly in dialogue.
1947 had brought some sadness to John Ford, for his former friend and colleague, Harry Carey Sr., had passed away. In honor of his memory he filmed "The 3 Godfathers" (1948), and included his late friends son, Harry Carey Jr. as a lead in the picture. This was a remake of a Carey Sr. & Ford film made back in the silent days. With its success, Carey Jr. then became a part of the Ford "Stock Company" and continued on in Ford's future pictures.
With "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), he fulfilled the second portion of his western trilogy including "Fort Apache" (1948) & "Rio Grande" (1950). But the film had an even bigger outcome than Ford had expected. With Wayne's amazing performance in "Red River" (1948), Ford made his character even older in his 1949 film. The hero played by Wayne was so powerful and effective that he would forever be seen as the ultimate American hero from that moment on.
Ford was now nearing his sixties, and kept on going. The forties had been good to him, though he had been wounded in the war. With the end of a golden decade, he prepared for the next one. With it came change that was unexpected, yet he continued to bring out some spectacular films.
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