Capital Celluloid 2014 - Day 296: Fri Oct 24

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Ford, 1949): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.40pm

This classic Ford western also screens on October 20 (with introduction by Dominic Power) and October 21 as part of the Passport to Cinema season. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Of all John Ford's lyrical films, this 1949 feature is the one that most nearly leaves narrative behind; it is pure theme and variation, centered on the figure of a retiring cavalry officer (John Wayne, playing with strength and conviction a man well beyond his actual age). The screenplay (by Frank Nugent and Laurence Stallings) is entirely episodic, and it ends in a magnificently sustained series of anticlimaxes, suggesting it could spin out forever. In Ford's superbly creative hands, it becomes perhaps the only avant-garde film ever made about the importance of tradition. With Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Victor McLaglen, Mildred Natwick, and George O'Brien.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is an extract.