Our Western series (see box this page) opens with visually stunning examples of the "classic" and "anti-classic" extremes of the genre. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is essential John Ford, his personal favorite among his loose "cavalry trilogy" as well as the all-time favorite film of conservatives from Douglas MacArthur to Barry Goldwater. By any standard of historical truth, this tale of the last Indian campaign of a soon-to-retire cavalry captain (John Wayne) is, at best, wildly sentimental. But Ford's interest lies in relating military virtues to an ideal of community spirit and personal responsibility. Whatever one might think of that project, no one approached it with Ford's depth. The film that Lindsay Anderson calls "one continual visual delight" will be seen tonight in the UCLA Film Archive print, renowned among archivists as the greatest success in preserving nitrate Technicolor. Winton Hoch's Oscar-winning cinematography captures the Monument Valley landscape in a Remingtonesque mode and in autumnal, twilit hues that match a spirit of the West that is already-in 1876-perceived as half memory. Scott Simmon