Like other filmmakers in post-WWII Hollywood, John Ford (already a three-time Best Directing Oscar winner), longed for the freedom and independence to make his own films, away from the dictates of studio executives. Then, in 1946, Ford and producer Merian C. Cooper (King Kong) decided to form their own production company, Argosy Productions. But their first venture was a financial flop, burdening the new company with heavy debt.
Ford turned to the Western genre to help his flagging company, adapting James Warner Bellah’s short story, “Massacre.” Fort Apache, released in 1948, starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple, was popular at the box office and with film critics.
The following year, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, was released to a positive critical reception a brisk business at the box office. This film was the only one in the cavalry trilogy shot in Technicolor, going on to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Rio Grande (1950), the final film in the triad, was produced by Republic Pictures (the first of a three-picture deal with Argosy Productions) and marked the first pairing of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Because of the film’s box office success, Republic Pictures greenlit Ford’s dream project, The Quiet Man (1952).
John Ford’s cavalry trilogy is considered some of his finest work, although Ford always claimed he never intended to make a trilogy. The reality is the first two films were produced to financially help his company, while the final one served as a means to getting his dream project produced.
The Cavalry Trilogy illuminates how each film was made, from pre-production to its theatrical release. Along the way, readers learn why Ford loved his favorite location (Monument Valley), how various stunts were achieved, and how Ford
used his unique style in various scenes (called a “Fordian touch” by film critics and scholars). In addition, each film includes an analysis of Ford’s scene construction and character development. Illustrated with numerous behind-the-scenes photographs, many which have never been published before, and screen captures from the cutting room floor, this book is the ultimate gift for John Ford fans and readers who love to discover the grit and glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Michael F. Blake spent 60 years working in the film and television industry prior to his retirement in 2018. He began acting at the age of two, and for the next twenty years appeared in numerous television shows such as Adam-12, The Lucy Show, The Munsters, Red Skelton Show, Kung Fu, Bewitched and Bonanza.
For 40 years he worked as a makeup artist on numerous movies and television shows, such as X-Men: First Class, Westworld, Spider-Man 3, Happy Days (final season), Soapdish, Tough Guys, Independence Day, Disney Sunday Night Movie, Magnum, P.I. (pilot) and Strange Days to name a few. He received two Emmy Awards for Best Makeup in 1998 (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) and 2016 (Key and Peele).
He has written three books on Hollywood’s “Man of a Thousand Faces,” Lon Chaney, which are considered the definitive work on the actor’s life and career. His books served as the basis for Kevin Brownlow’s 2000 documentary for Turner Classic Movies, Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces. Blake also authored My Code of Honor: The Making of High Noon, Shane and The Searchers and Hollywood and the O.K. Corral, both of which are considered valuable contributions to the genre.
The Cowboy President: The American West and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt was named the best political biography of 2018 by True West magazine. The book also won the gold medal in the Biography/Memoir category from the Will Rogers Medallion Awards. My follow-up book, Go West, Mr. President: Theodore Roosevelt’s Great Loop Tour of 1903 has been praised for shining a light on a little-known aspect of the 26th President’s life and career.
Blake also writes about Hollywood, filmmaking, and the West for Wild West, American Cinematographer, True West, Round-Up and Los Angeles Times. He Lives in Buckeye, Arizona
The untold story of John Ford’s three cavalry masterpieces could not have a more suitable and sympathetic chronicler than Michael F. Blake, whose prose, much like the films he writes about, is hard-nosed, insightful, and, by the last chapter, as poignant as Taps played by a lone bugler.
— Steve Bingen, film historian and author of The Fifty MGM Films That Transformed Hollywood.
“A most unusual angle on film history, taking you through Ford’s magnificent
Cavalry Trilogy at great pace, revealing so much with such knowledge and enthusiasm that you’ll want to watch the films again and again.”
— Kevin Brownlow, documentary filmmaker, author, film historian
“A friend of mine recently remarked that more than a hundred years after he began directing movies, there is still much to learn about John Ford. Case in point: Michael F. Blake’s magnificent analysis of the three Cavalry films Ford made after World War II. By turns forensic and elegiac, Blake unlocks the majestic secrets of these unforgettable films.”
— Scott Eyman, author of Print the Legend
