Rock Door Canyon-Monument Valley

blizzard blanketed the Valley with an unusually heavy and lasting snow, said to be two Indians deep on the level. Land travel was paralized for weeks. Military planes dropped food and hay to stranded Navajos and livestock in "Operation Hay Lift" and thanks to Ford and the payroll he had brought into the Valley there was food in the hogans, many tragedies were averted, many Navajo lives were saved.

When Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney formed a company to film Alan LeMay's 1954 best selling novel "The Searchers," with John Ford as director, once more the Valley hummed with activity. A half million dollars was spent just to move into the location. A tent city to house and feed three hundred sprang up on the flat below Goulding's Trading Post and Lodge. Two hundred-sixty miles of roads were constructed or improved in the Valley. Nearly three hundred Navajos found employment as actors, extras and laborers. The trading post airstrip buzzed with planes moving personnel and film to and from the location.

This was the biggest Hollywood operation the flaming buttes of Monument Valley had yet witnessed. This picture is surely destined to take its place as another great Left to right, in back of ceremonial deer hide: Lee and Frank Bradley Navajo interpreters and directors, C. V. Whitney producer of "The Searchers," Mrs. C. V. Whitney and Director John Ford. At the time of this presentation, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney were officially initiated into the Navajo Tribe.

OPPOSITE PAGE "ROCK DOOR CANYON - MONUMENT VALLEY" BY ALLENC C. REED. Late afternoon shadows creep into Roack Door Canyon through which is seen the spires of Monument Valley glowing in warm sunlight. The Seventh Day Adventist Mission is located in this canyon.

Western clasic. How would it be otherwise with so much in is favor, the directing genius of John Ford, the top box office abilities of John Wayne, a cast of outstanding per sonalities such as Ward Bond, Jeffery Hunter, Vara Miles, Nanalle Word, Jaha Qualen, Olive Orey, Harry Carey Jr., Ken Curtis, Honry Brandon and many others, the skilled camera techniques of Winton Hoch and a hand picked crew of technicisus; the highly scenic monument country, the haunting theme music, all blended together to porizay in Vista Vision Technicolor an exciting and cumtional story with a western setting at the close of the Cell Wan Civil WanWhen one observes John Ford st work, it is easy to understand why his plotares turn out so convincingly nat ural. Being a smati of ability, experience and e and good raste, he dots not rely solely upon the scenario or scriptų but changes, cremes and makes up the picture as it goes into the camera. Nobody knows for sure whet scene is going to be shot nest. On a moments notics, actors are hustled before the cemers, hastily dressed, groping for woods as in real life. The result is a scene that is convincing and spontaisenus, there is nothing static. Such a system can be quite confusing for the crew, but pictures with warmth and feeling rather than canned proditets, have long proven that this director knows what he is after and how to get it.

As an accomplished psychologist, if he is not getting the fire he wants in an anger scene, his words can be bru tal with even a veician actor in front of the entire cast and crew. By the time the cameras stop ralling and he starts kidding, it all dawns on the actor, who was inward ly furious seconds before, that he has been the subject of sonie masterful directing and he is deeply gratefs) for a superb performance is on fin. In a more subtle example of applied psychology, a boy and girl may be simost com pletely convinced, αναι even days lulare shooting a love scene, that they really are in love and a most convincing scene it turns out to be when the cameras reil..

Another vital ingredient in the Ford formule of di recting is mood monsin on the et, a carry-over froni silent pienre days. When he sensus the need for missie to act a mood and help the cast get the feel of a scene, bis per somal accordion pizyer is always close by and kaows from long association with Ford just what he is expected to play. The powerful affect this can have on those in έτους of the camera isn't to be doubted when, for example în shooting a tander scene, one observed grips, electricians and everyone behind the camares, at work with leg tears singhig down their cheeka. The two selections aqucazed from the accordien most often are surprisingly enough, Bringing in the Shesves" and "Shall We Gather at the River for when Joba Ford directs a pictate, cach day is starred off with hymu and a moment of reverent re Bection.

Academy award abilities have earned him a whole troup of Osons for "The Informer," "Grapes of Wrath," "How Green Was My Valley," "The "The Qales: Man," "Stage coach" and two special awards for docümentary films, "The Battle of Midway" and "Desembar 7."

Ford is one of the few reserve-officers to reach the rank of rear admiral. During World War II he served with distinction in both the Pacific and European theatres of action. He filmed the Navy's post in General Doolittle's raid on Tokyo. He participated in the raids on Mateus Island, Worje and photographed the Normandy landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day and the bitter air-sea battle of Midway. He received the Order of the Purple Heart and the Chevalier Order of the Crown of Belgium.

After the war John Ford became commander of the Motion Picture chapter of the Order of the Purple Heart. He also has done much work in rehabilitating disabled and paralyzed, veterans. During the war he set up a recreation farm at Enciso, California, which he still maintains for Navy men.

The sacred deer skin that was presented to Natani Nea by the Navajo people of Monument Valley had a message of good will lettered on it These delightfully simple words of the Navajo, rich in meaning, could just as well speak the sentiments of a lot of appreciative people everywhere.

Here are vistas of grandeur that would equal Grand Canyon; here is a massiveness of rock formation that equals the massiveness that we know as Zion Canyon; here is color that out-colors the color of Bryce Canyon; in this extravagance of landscape are canyons that can vie with Canyon de Chelly for sheer nobility of height and depth; here are remnants of a prehistoric civilization more ambitious than you can find in many national monuments devoted exclusively to the prehistoric; here are arches and bridges that compare favorably to those treasured items you find in Arches and Bridges National Monuments; and over and above these modest comparisons is a personality of scenery unlike anything else anywhere on earth. Here, in this wonderful Valley, you can find the equivalent of about three national parks and a dozen or so national monuments.

The place of which we speak is in the northwestern part of the Navajo Indian Reservation, straddling the Arizona-Utah state line, and it is called Monument Valley.

If there was ever a place that should be under the protection of the U.S. Government through its effective National Park Service, this is it. If our present Congress would create the Monument Valley National Recreation Area, it would be doing a great service to America of today and to America of tomorrow. When you have a glorious bundle of geology, archeology, paleanthology and anthropology, plus scenery, plus space, plus time, plus color, plus distance, all wrapped up in one bundle, as you have in such liberal portions in Monument Valley, you should protect it.

There is a good road running through the Valley. It is the main road from Kayenta to Blanding, Utah. But to see the Valley itself, one should have good guides and a sturdy jeep as transportation. (Valley tours in jeeps can be arranged at Goulding's Lodge in the Valley itself, and at Kayenta and Mexican Hat.)

Nobody Knows

It takes a jeep to see the Valley, and it would take four or five days in a sturdy jeep to see that part of the valley that nobody knows. You should go west and high up to Hoskininni Mesa (named after a noted Navajo chieftain) for a high-up view of the Valley and the undulating miles of color that make up the Valley floor. From here, too, further west you can look into Copper Canyon and to Navajo Mountain. The trip to the enclosing rim to the south reveals another view of the Valley, and from here, too, Comb Ridge lies stark and glaring before you, almost at arm's length, and from here, too, you see the back of Agathlan. Your eyes get tired just a'looking, and if you are taking pictures, and who doesn't, you wear out your thumb just a'clicking the old shutter because wherever you look there is a picture out of the ordinary staring you in the face.

The story of Monument Valley began 25,000,000 years ago. The geologic chapter of the Valley is wonderfully told in "Land of Room Enough and Time Enough" by Richard E. Klinck. (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, N.M.) About that time, just yesterday as time is measured in the Valley, the earth writhed and grimaced and threw forth the Rocky Mountains. The flatness that was Monument Valley cracked when the writhing and grimacing took place. Ancient seas, rolling off as the land raised, carved between the cracks and crevices of the Valley carrying the silt and sand away with what we know is now the Colorado and San Juan Rivers. The spires and monuments, as we know them today, were formed. Time and sun and wind and weather have done the polishing. Prehistoric creatures (their footprints remain) wallowed in the marshy swamps that once made the Valley COLOR DATA FOLLOWING PAGES Opposite page, this view of Monument Valley from Hoskinnini Mesa, one of the western boundaries of the expanse of sunlight and space that is Monument Valley, was taken by Josef Muench. From this lofty highland, the desert spreads out, rolling in even sweeps, cloud shadowed, to the distant rock statues of the Valley on the horizon. Following photographs show closeups of landmarks in the Valley, revealing of course, the Navajo, such an intimate of the scene. These photographs show in color the moods of the Valley and how the scene changes with the changing hours, and they show, too, the variety of rock formations and bridges hidden away in corners of the Valley which are only seen by the intrepid jeep motorist.