Contrary to some belief, Cheyenne Autumn is not the film vehicle John Ford used to make it up to the American Indian. Fort Apache was a film in which Ford showed the Indian as the wronged party. But Cheyenne Autumn is the one where the Indians are given equal time with the white soldiers. The action of the film is about 45% with the soldiers, 45% with the Cheyenne, and that 10% being that famous comic interlude in Dodge City.
In 1878 a band of Cheyenne, tired of the conditions on the reservation in Indian territory that they were enduring, broke the reservation and started north to their native homelands in what would be Wyoming. They were led by their three chiefs played by Victor Jory, Ricardo Montalban, and Gilbert Roland. Jory dies along the way.
The army goes after them and Captain Richard Widmark takes command after Major George O'Brien is killed. Widmark has another reason for pursuit. It seems as though Quaker school teacher Carroll Baker is with the fleeing Cheyenne.
Baker's not there because of being forced. She elects to go, considers it her Christian duty to be with them. She was a school teacher on the reservation and the kids need some looking after. She's a great Christian lady who obeys her conscience and walks the walk in her religious beliefs.
Widmark too is a man of conscience and in the course of the film makes a potentially career ending decision in dealing with the Cheyenne. Of course his association with Baker helps him see the light. There are other people of conscience here in this film, Sergeant Mike Mazurki, Army Doctor Sean McClory and real life Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz played by Edward G. Robinson.
Robinson came into Cheyenne Autumn after Spencer Tracy bowed out due to ill health. Fortunate I think because Robinson captures the real Carl Schurz who was something of a crusader in his day. He was a German immigrant from a liberal tradition who fled Europe after the 1848 revolutions.
It's a stunning film, but so tragic in its story that John Ford realized that their had to be some kind of comic relief so the sequence where the fleeing Cheyenne set off a panic in Wyatt Earp's Dodge City. James Stewart got on the list of a whole group of distinguished players who've been Wyatt Earp on the big screen. In playing Earp, Stewart dusts off the character of Guthrie McCabe, the mercenary marshal he played for Ford in Two Rode Together. Arthur Kennedy plays Doc Holliday here and Judson Pratt is Dodge City's famous frontier mayor Dog Kelly. Harry Carey, Jr. in his book Company of Heroes said that Ford had the scene because he just wanted to work with these actors again. In Kennedy's case it was a first and only time in a Ford film. I think the idea was to give the audience a break from the tragic plot line of the main story. The Dodge City interlude could be released as a short comedy film on its own.
Another view of Cheyenne Autumn comes from a recent biography of Sal Mineo who played Gilbert Roland's son. Ford could be a sadistic bully on the set and apparently chose Mineo as his target here. He constantly belittled him and continually called him 'Sol." Mineo himself was going through some angst about some bad career choices and his own sexual orientation.
Cheyenne Autumn is beautifully photographed in Ford's last visit to Monument Valley. It didn't do well at the box office, today it is a classic. The story is probably better suited for a TV mini-series. Still it gets a great recommendation from this writer.
In 1878 a band of Cheyenne, tired of the conditions on the reservation in Indian territory that they were enduring, broke the reservation and started north to their native homelands in what would be Wyoming. They were led by their three chiefs played by Victor Jory, Ricardo Montalban, and Gilbert Roland. Jory dies along the way.
The army goes after them and Captain Richard Widmark takes command after Major George O'Brien is killed. Widmark has another reason for pursuit. It seems as though Quaker school teacher Carroll Baker is with the fleeing Cheyenne.
Baker's not there because of being forced. She elects to go, considers it her Christian duty to be with them. She was a school teacher on the reservation and the kids need some looking after. She's a great Christian lady who obeys her conscience and walks the walk in her religious beliefs.
Widmark too is a man of conscience and in the course of the film makes a potentially career ending decision in dealing with the Cheyenne. Of course his association with Baker helps him see the light. There are other people of conscience here in this film, Sergeant Mike Mazurki, Army Doctor Sean McClory and real life Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz played by Edward G. Robinson.
Robinson came into Cheyenne Autumn after Spencer Tracy bowed out due to ill health. Fortunate I think because Robinson captures the real Carl Schurz who was something of a crusader in his day. He was a German immigrant from a liberal tradition who fled Europe after the 1848 revolutions.
It's a stunning film, but so tragic in its story that John Ford realized that their had to be some kind of comic relief so the sequence where the fleeing Cheyenne set off a panic in Wyatt Earp's Dodge City. James Stewart got on the list of a whole group of distinguished players who've been Wyatt Earp on the big screen. In playing Earp, Stewart dusts off the character of Guthrie McCabe, the mercenary marshal he played for Ford in Two Rode Together. Arthur Kennedy plays Doc Holliday here and Judson Pratt is Dodge City's famous frontier mayor Dog Kelly. Harry Carey, Jr. in his book Company of Heroes said that Ford had the scene because he just wanted to work with these actors again. In Kennedy's case it was a first and only time in a Ford film. I think the idea was to give the audience a break from the tragic plot line of the main story. The Dodge City interlude could be released as a short comedy film on its own.
Another view of Cheyenne Autumn comes from a recent biography of Sal Mineo who played Gilbert Roland's son. Ford could be a sadistic bully on the set and apparently chose Mineo as his target here. He constantly belittled him and continually called him 'Sol." Mineo himself was going through some angst about some bad career choices and his own sexual orientation.
Cheyenne Autumn is beautifully photographed in Ford's last visit to Monument Valley. It didn't do well at the box office, today it is a classic. The story is probably better suited for a TV mini-series. Still it gets a great recommendation from this writer.