Monument Valley Movie Tours Through John Ford Country

Cheyenne Autumn brought John Ford back to Monument Valley for the last Western of his career.  This is a very different Ford movie and a very different tour. 

 

We'll follow the locations used to tell the story of the Northern Cheyenne journey home, while discovering what Ford was trying to accomplish with the film, what happened during production, and how the Hollywood version compares with the extraordinary events that began in 1878.
 

You'll visit locations including:

• The Northern Cheyenne camp seen at the beginning of the film

• The location of Captain Archer's confrontation with the Northern Cheyenne

• The vast landscape where Archer searches for signs of the fleeing group

• The location of the epic river-crossing sequence

• Victory Cave, where Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz and Archer meet Little Wolf and Dull Knife

Along the way, we'll explore the unusual story behind Ford's final Western: his decision to shoot in 70mm Super Panavision, the casting choices he wanted but Hollywood didn't give him, and even the strange Jimmy Stewart Wyatt Earp sequence that seems to belong to an entirely different movie.

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Most importantly, we'll look beyond Hollywood.

Cheyenne Autumn drew upon the real Northern Cheyenne exodus from Indian Territory toward their northern homeland. Standing in the locations Ford used to tell that story, we'll explore what actually happened, what the movie changed, and where Ford used history as the foundation for his own cinematic story.

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It's part movie-location adventure, part behind-the-scenes story and part journey into the history that inspired Ford's final farewell to the Western.