I was looking forward to liking this film so it came as a disappointment that things just didn't work for me. "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" is one of my favorite westerns too. Shirley Temple never really made it on screen as an adult, regardless of how many times the system tried to use her. John Agar, her husband at the time (so I've read) was also lackluster so they matched on screen as well. We are all aware - or have been made aware - of John Ford's Irishness but in this case things got wildly out of hand. The humor was broad - extremely broad - and the "jokes" wore thin from the very beginning. What irritated me most, however, was the musical score. At the start of the film, already, with the magnificent vistas of Monument Valley, the score is overly forceful, staccato and as obtrusive as it is intrusive. The music is everywhere, even when it's not needed and spills off some scenes into others where it isn't even appropriate. It is consistently loud and impairs rather than aids what's on the screen. Someone should have edited the score!
Curtis Stotlar
Curtis Stotlar