Hondo

Name: Hondo
Director: John Farrow
Released: 1953

Synopsis

Army despatch rider Hondo Lane discovers a woman and her son living in the midst of warring Apaches, and he becomes their protector.

100
San Francisco Chronicle
There's no shortage of well-staged oater action by director John Farrow (including some trick 3-D effects lost in this otherwise 2-D version) as Wayne and his buckskinned pal Buffalo Baker (Ward Bond) ride out to save a band of settlers from marauding Indians. [23 Oct 2005]
90
The Observer (UK)
An excellent 1954 John Wayne Western, in which he plays a cavalry scout with Indian sympathies fighting Apaches in New Mexico.
83
Portland Oregonian
This is one of the Duke's better Westerns. [14 Oct 2005, p.47]
75
Slant Magazine
Hondo is a mash of the usual tropes, a whirlwind of Native American war paint, cavalry stripes, a sawdust-saloon poker game, a few fistfights, plenty of gunfire, and every moral equation coming to a satisfactory balance by the time the credits roll.
75
TV Guide Magazine
The film is partly inspired by SHANE, accentuating the close relationship of hero-worshiping youngster to virtuous gunfighter, and its exterior shooting has the look of a John Ford work, but HONDO stands tall on its own.
70
Time Out
Page won an Oscar nomination for this, her first film role, but Wayne's guileless performance is even better: gently self-mocking, while still every inch the embodiment of the conviction that "a man ought to do what he thinks is best."
70
Variety
Hondo is an exciting offbeat western. The stereoscopic 3-D cameras and WarnerColor successfully capture the vast natural beauty of Camargo, Mexico, where the picture was filmed on location.