Rio Grande is a 1950 Western film. It is the third installment of John Ford's "cavalry trilogy," following two RKO Pictures releases: Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). John Wayne stars in all three films, as Captain Kirby York in Fort Apache, then as Captain of Cavalry Nathan Cutting Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and finally as a promoted Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke in Rio Grande (scripts and production billing spell the York/Yorke character's last name differently in Fort Apache and Rio Grande). The film is based on a short story "Mission With No Record" by James Warner Bellah, that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on September 27, 1947, and the screenplay was written by James Kevin McGuinness. Ford wanted to make The Quiet Man first, but Republic Pictures studio president Herbert Yates insisted that Ford make Rio Grande first, using the same combination of Wayne and Maureen O'Hara; Yates did not feel that the script of The Quiet Man was very good, and wanted Rio Grande to be released first to pay for The Quiet Man.