[4] Homesteader Angie Lowe and her six-year-old son Johnny are doing chores when soldier Hondo Lane arrives with his dog, carrying his saddle bags and rifle.
Meanwhile, Vittorio, sure that Ed is dead, gives Angie an ultimatum to take an Apache husband by the rainy season.
Hondo responds to her plea with a Native American word that seals an Apache wife-seeking ceremony, Varlabania, which he says means "forever".
Hondo kills Silva (their new leader) and the Apaches scatter, giving the settlers and soldiers a chance to escape.
Wayne's newly formed production company Wayne-Fellows Productions (later Batjac) purchased the rights to Louis L'Amour's short story "The Gift of Cochise" in 1952, and set Wayne's friend and frequent collaborator James Edward Grant to write the adaptation, which expanded the original story, introduced new characters, and added the cavalry subplot.
The film shoot was scheduled for the summer of 1953 in the Mexican desert state of Chihuahua in the San Francisco de Conchos region.
Today, this region is known for its tourist attractions such as Lago Colina and the spring pools Los Filtros.
Wayne and his producing partner Robert Fellows wanted to shoot the film in the trendsetting 3D format.
Warner Bros. supplied the production with the newly developed "All-Media Camera", which could shoot in any format, including 3D, using twin lenses placed slightly apart to produce the stereoscopic effect necessary for it.
Farrow used the technology to produce fewer gimmicks than other 3D films did at the time, with only a few scenes showing people or objects coming at the camera, such as gunfire or knives.
Instead, he preferred to use it to increase the depth of the expansive wide shots of the Mexican desert, or when showing figures against a landscape.
"[6] Even with the production troubles that came with the location shooting in 3D, the studio thought it was a worthwhile venture, since 3D pictures were at the height of popularity at the time of the film's development.
[9] The distributing studio Warner Bros. did everything it could to promote its new 3D camera process, and went beyond the typical gimmicks used by other popular 3D films at the time, such as House of Wax, producing a richer sense of perspective.
The film ended up becoming quite popular with audiences, eventually grossing $4.1 million at the box office and placing it in the top-20 moneymakers for that year.
[11] An initial restoration of Hondo was overseen by Wayne's son Michael, head of Batjac Productions, in the late 1980s, culminating in a syndicated broadcast of the film in June 1991 on American over-the-air stations in anaglyph 3D.
A frame-by-frame digital restoration by Prasad Corporation of the film was later completed, and the DVD of it was released on October 11, 2005.
Part of a 1988 episode of Married... with Children, titled "All in the Family", has Al Bundy readying himself to watch Hondo in peace during a three-day weekend, but Peggy's family comes to visit, and their ensuing problems prevent him from seeing the film, just as their antics prevented him from seeing Shane the previous year.
[14] Al holds the film in very high esteem, once telling Peggy's family members, "Your lives are meaningless compared to Hondo!"
In the 1973 film The Train Robbers, the chief male and female characters (played by Wayne and Ann-Margret) are Lane and Mrs. Lowe, the same names as in "Hondo".