Apaches by Oakley Hall (review)

Reviews 187 With these exceptions aside, Gallagher presents a clear and valuable analysis of the life and films of one of the most important directors in the first half-century of American film. Gallagher approaches Ford’s films by dividing Ford’s career into four major periods after an apprenticeship with silents: the first period, the “Age of Introspection,” (1927-1935); the second period (1935-1947), the “Age of Idealism” ; the third period, “The Age of Myth,” (1948-1961) ; and the final period, “The Age of Mortality,” (1962-1965). According to Gallagher, throughout these various periods Ford worked a dominant theme: “Milieu, through tradition, duty, and ritual, determines individual character.” These films that Gallagher labels the best, which he defines as “those most inventive and emotionally balanced,” get lengthy shotby -shot analyses. Other films such as The Grapes of Wrath, a film Gallagher finds “ponderous,” get less emphasis. An auteur critic, Gallagher goes to great lengths to demonstrate how Ford put his stamp on almost every film through his manipulation of actors, his careful use of film to limit editing, and framing techniques. Although many will wish to argue specific points, almost everyone will find Gallagher’s book a necessary addition to a library of film books. The extensive filmography isespecially helpful. MARK BUSBY Texas A&M University Apaches. By Oakley Hall. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. 462 pages, $18.95.) This, the centennial of Geronimo’s capture, has brought a handful of accounts of that archetypal, legendary figure. It is fitting, now, that a robust historical novel about Geronimo’s time finds its place beside other new books on our southwestern shelves. In Apaches we find Geronimo surrounded by the forces which produced him: the untamed West, the headlong influx of miners, cattlemen and entre­ preneurs, the old Spanish-Mexican gente and the various bewildered but tenacious Apache groups. Thinly disguised versions of Geronimo, General Crook, Lieutenants Gatewood and Miles, Captain Crawford, and Billy the Kid, appear in this story of the Apache “depredations.” Although we’ve come to expect these stereotypes in a somewhat tired western genre, this time we don’t get mere cliches. Well-rounded, believable people act out this strong, fresh story. Hall knows human motivations, history, and Apaches. I was surprised when he wrote, “They call themselves Indeh, the dead” rather than “Indeh, the people.” But everything else he says shows he understands and appreciates Apache culture. He presents Apache people as he does his other characters, with humor and humanity as well as with intellectual honesty. 188 Western American Literature Although Apaches is the story of the last Indian outbreak, it is mostly Lieutenant Pat Cutler’s story. Attractive to women, too outspoken for most politicians and B.I.A. agents, Cutler has been charged by the General Crook figure to see that Caballito, the Geronimo figure, stays put on the Bosque Alto. Beginning with Cutler’s group of Apache scouts fighting and foxing their way out of an ambush set by Caballito, the story moves swiftly to the political underpinnings of frontier society. Cutler’swarm relationships with the wife of a territorial lawyer, with the cowboy who becomes an outlaw, and with the beautiful spoiled daughter of a Chihuahuan haciendado, balance the harsh and cruel action scenes. Oakley Hall has woven history and invention into a complete and absorbing, not entirely predictable, fast-paced, adventure. NANCY KIRKPATRICK WRIGHT Yavapai College Those Days: An American Album. By Richard Critchfield. (Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1986. 419 pages, $19.95.) The author’sstyle of writing in this book isone of its best features. He lets various people in a North Dakota/Iowa family tell the story of “those days” past, and the method gives the reader a biographical/fictional viewpoint. Hadwen (an Iowa country doctor) and Jessie (a rural North Dakota school­ teacher) Williams are the first of the family to come to this midwestern farm country, and their grandchildren reflect upon their experience. A daughter, Anna Louise (the author’s mother), tells much of the story, but Critchfield includes letters, newspaper stories and the actual first-person accounts of other family members and neighbors. The time is between1880 and 1940 in the semi-rural heartland...