She Wore a Yellow Ribbon | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | John Ford |
Produced by | Argosy Pictures |
Screenplay by | |
Based on |
The Big Hunt 1947 story in The Saturday Evening Post War Party 1948 in The Saturday Evening Post by James Warner Bellah |
Starring | |
Narrated by | Irving Pichel |
Music by | Richard Hageman |
Cinematography | Winton Hoch |
Edited by | Jack Murray |
Production
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Argosy Pictures
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Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date
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Running time
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103 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is a 1949 Technicolor Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. The Academy Award winning film was the second of Ford's Cavalry trilogy films (the other two being Fort Apache (1948) and Rio Grande (1950)). With a budget of $1.6 million, the film was one of the most expensive Westerns made up to that time. It was a major hit for RKO. The film takes its name from "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", a popular US military song that is used to keep marching cadence.
The film was shot on location in Monument Valley utilizing large areas of the Navajo reservation along the Arizona-Utah state border. Ford and cinematographer Winton Hoch based much of the film's imagery on the paintings and sculptures of Frederic Remington. The film won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1950. It was also nominated as 1950's Best Written American Western (which the Writers Guild of America awarded to Yellow Sky).
On the verge of his retirement at Fort Starke, a one-troop cavalry post, aging US Cavalry Captain Nathan Cutting Brittles (John Wayne) is given one last mission: to take his troop and deal with a breakout from the reservation by the Cheyenne and Arapaho following the defeat of George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.