This film is the first of John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy." (The other two films are She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande). All three films star John Wayne, and all are shot in Ford's favorite outdoor location, Monument Valley in Arizona. Fort Apache makes creative use of its locations, especially in the concluding battle scenes. The film gives ample scope to Ford's economical storytelling, yet at the same time it allows for all sorts of subplots and detours. It combines various types of action--the study of clashing characters in difficult situations, the war movie, romance, and comedy--and fuses them together to embody (or actually, to create) a mythology of the Old West, the American frontier.
Think about John Wayne's iconic presence, and how his character stands in relation to those of Henry Fonda (very effectively cast against type here as a stern martinet) and of Shirley Temple (in her first adult role--how does Ford manage to fit her into the picture without sinking into total incongruity?)
Think about how Ford creates the sense of a frontier community (as he does in so many of his Westerns). What ideals characterize this community, and how does Ford depict them? What tensions of gender and race are involved in these depictions? Fords treatment of women, and of non-white ethnic groups (particularly Indians and Mexicans) is always deeply problematic, but less objectionable in this film than in many of his others.