Richard Barthelmess stars as Joe Thunderhorse, a Sioux Indian who has grown up in white schools and is the star of a traveling "Old West" show. He goes back to "the reservation" when he gets a telegram that his father is dying. Once there he runs up against a trio of crooked white men, Dudley Digges as the Indian Agaent, Arthur Hohl as the incompetent doctor, and Sidney Toler as the henchman. He also meets Lydia (Ann Dvorak) who knows the realities of life on the reservation.
The whites treat Joe like any other Indian, but Joe has lived in the white world for 30 years and fights back. After he he convicted of attempted murder in an amazingly crooked court run by Digges, Joe breaks from the reservation and heads to Washington, where the case turns into a national event with a national network of graft and corruption exposed.
This is an highly entertaining film that publicizes the Indians' plight and (as of 1934) lack of civil rights.
Barthelmess is excellent as the crusading Joe. Dvorak is solid as the heroine. Digges, Hohl, and Toler are appropriately slimy. Co-stars include Claire Dodd, Tully Marshall, Clarence Muse, Henry O'Neill, Charles Middleton, and Robert Barrat.
The whites treat Joe like any other Indian, but Joe has lived in the white world for 30 years and fights back. After he he convicted of attempted murder in an amazingly crooked court run by Digges, Joe breaks from the reservation and heads to Washington, where the case turns into a national event with a national network of graft and corruption exposed.
This is an highly entertaining film that publicizes the Indians' plight and (as of 1934) lack of civil rights.
Barthelmess is excellent as the crusading Joe. Dvorak is solid as the heroine. Digges, Hohl, and Toler are appropriately slimy. Co-stars include Claire Dodd, Tully Marshall, Clarence Muse, Henry O'Neill, Charles Middleton, and Robert Barrat.