One of the most significant and
memorable scenes that takes place in “
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” (1949) has Tom Tyler as Corporal Mike Quayne who is injured during an
Indian attack and has to undergo surgery to remove the bullet from
the wound in a covered wagon during the trek through Indian territory
out west. The commanding officer, Captain Nathan Brittles (John
Wayne) is only a few days away from retirement yet has to guide his
cavalry through one last mission – and at the same time, look after
Major Mac Allshard's (George O'Brien) wife Abby (Mildred Natwick) and
her niece, Olivia Dandridge (Joanne Dru). As an installment of
director John Ford's cavalry trilogy, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”,
the movie stresses the magnificent land of the west, and not
surprisingly, won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Cinematography
(Color).
From the time we see Corporal Quayne
appearing on horseback seated behind another officer over the crest
of the hill, escaping a band of marauding Indians, to when he falls
off and collapses onto the ground, injured, to when he is finally
propped up by two men so that he could deliver his message to Captain
Brittles, is dramatic in itself although not the highest point of the
movie for Tom Tyler.
And with him horse and foot--and
parks of artillery,
And artillery-men, the deadliest
that ever fired gun.
-Whitman
Yet with his hair all astray, a bandana
tied around his forehead, Quayne explains to his superior that his
injury might have been preventable had his men some aid from Captain
Brittles. Quayne is guided off in the direction of the covered wagon
where he is about to undergo surgery to remove the bullet from his
chest wound, temporarily disappearing from the story, to help build
up the next scene to come, which takes place during inclement
weather.
As the day progresses during the
cavalry's march, the blue western skies slowly transform into dark
clouds, a bolt of lightning flashing in the distance. While the
simulated thunderstorm took place according to the script – at the
same moment during filming, a real thunderstorm was looming over the
horizon, providing just the right atmosphere for the surgery scene to
take place. Laid up in the covered wagon, Abby and Dr. O'Laughlin
(Arthur Shields) commence with the operation. Quayne displays a
number of painful expressions, teeth gritting, sweat beading upon his
forehead as Abby gets ready to administer him a shot of whiskey to
help deaden the pain to come. She holds the glass before his lips,
but Quayne lifts his hand to move the glass away and replies “After
you Ma'am”, to which she takes a swig of the liquor before handing
him the glass. Quayne drinks, and they start singing the cavalry
song, right before he is finally knocked out so that Dr. O'Laughlin
can remove the bullet from his chest. The cavalry continues on its trek, as
the thunderstorm continues during the entire scene. Enveloped in
total darkness, wrapped up as comfortably as he can be, relaxed for
the doctor so the surgery is successful and recovery can be swift,
the thunder of darkness along with the whisky shot, offers
contentment to Quayne.
Not completely gone from the story, we
see Corporal Quayne one last time, days after his surgery while he is
recovering, heavily bandaged up and sitting on the end of the
covered wagon and anxious to get back into action. Captain Brittles
denies the request and orders Quayne back into the wagon so that his
recovery is complete. This is the last we see of Quayne in “She
Wore a Yellow Ribbon” and as with Tom's other minor roles in
A-westerns, a powerful piece of acting is delivered. What is also
significant about this role is that the progressive effects of
scleroderma are visible in Tom's face, a terminal disease which has
no cure even in 2017.
“She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” is not
the first movie where Tom is in a role undergoing surgery in a
covered wagon; “
The Forty Niners”
(1932) has a similar scene minus the actual surgery taking place. In this
case, a group of men and women head out west to California to seek
their wealth in the gold rush, and Tom, as Tennessee Matthews, gets
into a fight with another man (Al Bridge) over a woman. Plugged from
the front, Tennessee passes out, injured, and is carried into one of
the covered wagons where the unseen doctor removes the bullet.
Tennessee recovers, and while he is laid upon blankets, he also has
mosquito netting covering him in order to prevent further infection.
Similar to his role in “Stagecoach”,
Tom Tyler is onscreen only for a few minutes in the three scenes he
appears in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” but makes the most of them,
his experience in silent film paying off once again. Had “Stagecoach”
been shot in Technicolor, it probably would be similar to this movie,
since John Ford directed both, it is not difficult to imagine the
vibrant pink, orange and purple colors dominating the western sky,
stretching over the raw land of reds and yellows. As a supporting
actor, Tom's acting talent is as fine as it comes, and as with the
B-westerns of his silent film career, shows that he is perfectly
suited to films of the western genre.
