I did not enjoy this. Not a little bit.
A few notes: First of all - John Wayne couldn't act.
Second of all: John Wayne couldn't act.
I could go on this tangent for a while, but you get the idea.
In the scene with the Cavalry taking the Comanche prisoners if you look close you can spot an automobile driving in the background.
But that's trivial. What's more to the point is that the movie introduces ideas that are genuinely interesting and complex, only to abandon them in the service of an entirely unworthy plot and absolutely banal character development. Politically incorrect in the extreme - how did this even fly then? I mean the scene where "One Who Follows" kicks his newly acquired squaw-bride down the hill, not funny. Not at all. Or the depiction of the Comanche as "children", and the "back story" given to "Scar" - he's on the warpath avenging the death of his sons, or John Wayne's character of an Indian Hating vengeful uncle, the implied horrors of Indian Captivity, the finding of the girl to discover that she wants to continue living with the Comanche - "her people now" - I mean, there were an abundance of morally complex themes that were brought up and then completely ignored. There were the ideas of the greatness - and vastness - of the undiscovered West, the final frontier, yet it was not filmed as such, moments of grandeur - such as when they reach the winter territories - are almost accidental, dialogue, irrelevant and frequently idiotic, characters, stock types every one. I could go on.
SO, for a movie with some reputation I was offended beyond measure, it certainly has a place in the history of American prejudice and bigotry but is more a model of how NOT to make a film.
That said, like James Cameron's "The Titanic", seldom has such a mediocre film so inflamed me. So there's something.