Ford's strength lay in the treatment of powerful, simple themes—the value of friendship, the loyalty to a cause, the virtues of honor, courage, fortitude. Ford's characters must meet a standard of appropriateness—of knowing when and how to get drunk, and when to sober up; of holding one's own at a poker game in the dance hall; and of dancing a waltz at a Sunday morning church-raising. There are strong conflicts in his films, but some of his characters seem to know what is right. Ford honors old soldiers of either side, but they have to have fought to gain his respect. His escapism is into a simplistic past—he seems to have had little compassion for the contemporary form of escapism into apathy.

His westerns present the standard racist view of the American West. Except for his late Cheyenne Autumn, the Indian is the enemy, whether noble warrior or drunken savage. Mexican Americans form a picturesque chorus; their accents and strange foods and customs provide comic relief. But Ford's films exhibit such a warm-hearted affection for human vices and foibles that one tries to minimize the ideological shortcomings of his westerns. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a newspaper editor says, "Between the fact and the legend, print the legend." Ford's movies are about the legend. His vision of the American West may be faulted on historical grounds, but man needs legends, and there is much fundamental human truth in his films. During the last decade the 7th Cavalry has stopped arriving in the nick of time. Perhaps we should enjoy all the more those films of Ford's in which, after much suffering and adversity, at the end the trumpet sounded the charge. (pp. 23-4)