A lot could be said about this incredibly rich film in which Ford uses color for the first time and about its allusions to national unity at a time when war was about to break out in Europe (like in King Vidor’s Northwest Passage, made at the same time). I will just mention three things. (…) A panning shot of a vast landscape with a pine forest in the background. The image is crossed diagonally by American soldiers moving away to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. In the foreground to the left, Lana (Claudette Colbert), the wife of Gil (Henry Fonda), is standing and then disappears. The composition repeats Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (Sherman’s march to the sea) “verbatim”. But whereas Griffith’s sympathy with the Confederates created an irreconcilable conflict between epic and pathos, Ford, who worked without Griffith’s sweeping vision, showed the inseparable link between these two mutually functional emotions. (…) Upon his return, Fonda described the battle in which he participated, the Indians painted blue, yellow and red, the British in their red uniforms. They say that Ford, tired of Zanuck’s reminders – he had reprimanded Ford for being late and having gone over his budget – resorted to this “story à la Theramenes” instead of shooting a long and expensive battle. The anecdote does not change a thing; Fonda’s itinerary is what justifies the comparison with classical tragedy (and with the eternal progression of the epic), setting off in search of reinforcement and followed, like Horace, by three Indians. Set to the beat of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and reminiscent of Paul Revere’s midnight ride and the run from Marathon, the film is a lengthy display of Ford’s skill, which reaches perfection with the silhouettes emerging on the horizon bathed in the orange light of dawn.

Jean-Loup Bourget, John Ford, Éditions Rivages, Paris 1990