“Arguably Ford's most extraordinary use of color, arguably John Wayne's best performance, inarguably one of Ford's greatest masterworks. Wayne plays an aging Cavalry officer on his last mission before retirement - and the fact that he seeks to make peace with the Apaches instead of fighting them shows how far Ford had come from the conventional westerns with which he had made his reputation. As in Fort Apache, the emphasis here is not on shoot-em-up action, but on tradition, textural detail, and nuance of character. One remembers Wayne's touching conversations at his wife's grave, his retirement speech to the troops, and his meeting with Chief Pony That Walks.... And of course one remembers the stunning set-piece in which an emergency operation takes place in a covered wagon under the ultimate Fordian storm clouds, during which the Major's wife gets drunk with the wounded trooper and ends up singing off-color verses to ‘Yellow Ribbon' (Mildred Natwick's greatest moment).” --Michael Goodwin