Loosely inspired by General Custer’s defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, the first Western in John Ford’s “Cavalry Trilogy” presents the ambitious Lieutenant Colonel Thursday (Henry Fonda), who is bitter at being reassigned to a distant outpost. When the Apaches go on the warpath, all the warnings of the hardened Captain York (John Wayne) are in vain. One of the first films to portray the original inhabitants of the North American continent with respect and understanding, Fort Apache is one of many films that contributed to the iconic status of Monument Valley, using the local scenery as the stage for a thrilling depiction of watershed moments in the history of the conquest of the American West.