John Ford made westerns -- including the great U. S. cavalry trilogy, comprised of Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande, between 1946 and 1950. He also made other kinds of movies set in Ireland (The Informer, The Quiet Man, The Plough and the Stars), Wales (How Green Was My Valley), India (Wee Willie Winka), Africa (Mogambo), Polynesia (Hurricane, Donovan's Reef), and China (Seven Women).

After filming the slaughter of many thousands of Native Americans, Ford made "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964) as a kind of reparation (casting few if any Native Americans, however), though what is now regarded as his most complex movie set in the territories of the 19th-century western United States, "The Searchers" (1956), already questioned the obsessive/genocidal hatred of the original inhabitants of the lands.

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," which was a commercial and critical flop when it was released in 1962 also cast doubt on western myths. In between those two films that are now generally considered masterpieces, in 1960, he went to his beloved Monument Valley to make an unusual combination of courtroom drama and celebration of the black part of the frontier cavalry, the "buffalo soldiers" of the 9th cavalry.

There are two battles with Apaches who have broken out of their reservation (nothing other than youthful restlessness is given as an explanation for this within the movie, not the well documented cheating by government agents and provision of spoiled food spiced with great condescension). The title character is heroic in both skirmishes, and, in the second, saves the company from an ambush in which it likely would have been annihilated.

But I have gotten way ahead of the story, which is told in mostly consecutive flashbacks supposedly as testimony in a court-martial. The "top black soldier," Sergeant Rutledge (Woody Strode), is on trial for his life for rape and murder, defended by Jeffrey Hunter (before he became Jesus Christ in "King of Kings" but more mature than the youth who goes along with John Wayne in "The Searchers).

The courtroom procedures are less plausible than those in episodes of "Boston Legal," culminating in an unintentional parody of "Perry Mason" denouements. The story is picked up by successive witnesses-- very implausibly neat a development. Worse still, the supposed testimony includes what the person testifying did not see. The perspective is as sloppy as the prosecutor (Carleton Young) is histrionic--which is to say very!

The townsmen are eager to lynch Sgt. Rutledge and the judges' characters are undeveloped on screen, except for the presiding officer Col. Fosgate's impatience with his stereotypically blathering wife Cordelia (Billie Burke's last credited role). The judges take a recess to play a few hands of poker and generally seem to lack the sense to slap down the antics of the prosecutor.

As defense counsel Lt. Tom Cantrell is less inclined to trickery, but pounds the table behind which the panel is sitting and (justifiably) maligns Capt. Shattuck's antics.

Through most of the trial, the defendant sits stony-faced. When he testifies, he is eventually goaded to passion, though not the kind Capt.. Shattuck sought to trigger. Fighting Apaches, whether alone with Mary Beecher (Constance Towers), scouting them between battles, or commanding troops who revere him, "Captain Buffalo," Sgt. Rutledge is the compleat soldier. I don't think it is a plot spoiler to say that he is not guilty of what he is charged with, because he is shown throughout the movie to be incapable of the crimes, and the movie's stars are adamant in their belief in him throughout the trial (and Mary did not doubt him for a moment before the trial either).

The trial machinery is very klunky, the outdoor photography is splendid. Jeffrey Hunter is convincing as a field commander (to my surprise) and effective as an advocate. Woody Strode is very reluctant to defend himself and a blatant victim of racism, but is convincing as a paragon of military virtue, discipline, and honor. As in "Spartacus" (released the same year) he chooses death (what he and most everyone else regard as the certain outcome of standing trial) over groveling.

The Performers

For stoic heroism and being better than any of his detractors at his job Woody Strode's Sgt. Rutledge matches Sidney Poitier of the 1950s and 60s. A former professional football player (indeed, one of the four African Americans who integrated professional football in 1946), Strode was a commanding figure, but his prime was a decade or two before the blaxploitation boom of the early 1970s. In addition to playing the gladiator who lets Spartacus live, Strode was memorable as one of "The Professionals," as a private in Korea in "Pork Chop Hill," and as one of the hit-men in the opening of "Once Upon a Time in the West." John Ford also cast him in "Liberty Valance", "Two Rode Together", and "Seven Women" (as a Mongol warrior... if John Wayne could play Genghis Khan...).

Jeffrey Hunter was one of the too-handsome late 1950s movie stars (Tab Hunter, Troy Donahue, Robert Wagner, Tony Curtis). Ford cast him in a major role in "The Last Hurrah" (with Spencer Tracy), then George Stevens cast him as the "King of Kings" which seems to have killed his career. Then he died from a sequence of head wounds and medical malpractice in 1969, at age 43.

Willis Bouchey, Carleton Young, and Judson Pratt all played in multiple Ford pictures., and Constance Towers (who was married to John Gavin when he was US ambassador to Mexico and I was living in Mexico City in 1981) had been in Ford's "The Horse Soldiers" the year before " with all three of them. Also, 1960 Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson played the buffalo soldier corporal.

And can anyone not know that Billie Burke was the good witch of "The Wizard of Oz"? She seems to have been cast in increasingly pompous/scatter-brained roles thereafter.

Later representations of blacks playing major roles in westerns

Sidney Poitier in "Duel at Diablo"
http://www.epinions.com/content_8241280166

Ossie Davis in "The Scalphunters"
http://www.epinions.com/content_82240573060

Lou Gossett playing "The Skin Game"
http://www.epinions.com/content_79085866628

plus Cleavon Little in Mel Brooks's "Blazing Saddles", Danny Golver in "Silverado," and Morgan Freeman in Clint Eastwood's "The Unforgiven"



Recommended:
Yes