Cheyenne Autumn

source: Cheyenne Autumn

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.

It's at least one of the worst. John Ford's "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964) was supposedly based on the book of the same name; the book's excellent, but this movie's a total fail. For one, the story focuses on what is known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus wherein Chiefs Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalban) and Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland) lead over three hundred starved and weary Cheyenne from their reservation in the Oklahoma territory to eastern Montana. Google it and you can see the exact trail route. What's the problem? Well, Ford shot the picture entirely in his beloved Monument Valley and surrounding areas in Arizona. Evidently Ford thought that we're all doofuses and no one would notice that the desert Southwest looks absolutely nothing like the Great Plains where the exodus actually took place. Imagine a movie taking place in the northern Appalachians, but shooting it in the swamps of Louisiana; it's the same gross contrast. I'm not suggesting, by the way, that films based on factual events always have to be shot at the actual locations, but shouldn't the locations at least remotely resemble the actual locations? For instance, although the story of "Cold Mountain" takes place in North Carolina and Virginia parts of it were shot in Romania, but it was okay because the geography and climate is the same. Or take 1953's "War Arrow," which took place in West Texas, but was shot in California; it worked out because the CA locations were an acceptable substitute for West Texas (not great, but at least acceptable). If this weren't bad enough, the story as played out in "Cheyenne Autumn" is so dreadfully dull and the acting so melodramatic that you'll be seriously tempted to tune out by the half hour mark. And then there's this utterly incongruent sequence with Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp in Dodge City, Kansas (which, again, looks absolutely nothing like Monument Valley). Needless to say, this film's so godawful you have to actually see it to believe it. In fact, that would be the only reason for viewing it; that and maybe having a good laugh. It's a cinematic abomination. What's crazy is that the current IMDb rating is 6.9. Can you believe it? I can only stock this up to Ford fanatics who can't face the awful truth that this great auteur barfed out such utter trash. And to think that this -- his last film -- was supposed to be some kind of apology to Native Americans for his one-dimensional portrayal in past films. What irony. To add insult to injury the film is painfully overlong at 2.5 hours (which feels like 4 hours). GRADE: F

John Ford dealt with one of the long-lasting Indian tragedies in his "Cheyenne Autumn," the wasting away of a tribe in an uncongenial pen called a reservation and its efforts to take matters into its own hands Indians, to use a modern term, had become redundant; that was their true tragedy… They were unwanted in what the whites wanted to make of the West and so they were 'placed' and disposed of, thereby suffering the usual 'superfluous' maladies of physical and moral debilitation… Here they are portrayed as the victims of insensitive herding The Cheyennes—1,500 miles away in Oklahoma from their Yellowstone home—had seen their numbers depleted from one thousand to less than three hundred in the course of a disease-ridden year… With these sorts of statistics it was as much a matter of simple logic as an act of desperation when they upped and left one night, bound on foot for their old hunting grounds, probably knowing full well that the cavalry would make them hurry, as they did, all the way… An epic in real life. Would the master epic-maker match it? In purely visual terms the answer was 'yes'. Ford vivid1y depicted the starvation and disease plaguing the Cheyenne trek… But somehow Ford never wholly got to the heart of the matter although the intent was there and at times this is a most impressive and moving film Carroll Baker appears as a Quaker teacher who tries in vain to he1p the unfortunate migrants… Richard Widmark is the army captain who is as sympathetic as uniform allows, and Arthur Kennedy is razor-sharp in his impersonation of Doc Holliday, who, with Stewart's Earp, is drafted into leading a posse against the Indians… Stewart deliberately re-routes them and the Indians get away… Edward G. Robinson plays a humane and kindly Secretary of the Interior who helps bail out the unlucky Cheyenne.

I could have written a much-longer headline, such as: ""John Ford: Typical Liberal Hypocrite Who Doesn't Practice What He Preaches." In this film, an outwardly-liberal slant on the side of American Indians (PC translation: Native Americans), director Ford uses Hispanics to play the Indians! Ha ha - what a phony! Couldn't he have made an effort to find to "real" Indians play the roles? Ford's biggest sin wasn't that, however; it was making an incredibly boring film. How can you make a western this tedious, especially with a great cast? The film starts off Left-of-center and just keeps going with the Native Americans as the good guys and the government, the military and white men in general as all the bad guys. Wow, Kevin Costner must have drooled - or worse - watching this movie and being inspired to do the same thing two decades later with "Dances With Wolves." Politics-aside, what hurts this film is that slowness combined with characters that are basically dull, too. Also, no one is able to explain what Jimmy Stewart's role was, and why it took up so much time and didn't seem connected to the rest of the story. What kind of film- making is that? Ford was so concerned about making up for past sins against the Indians that he forgot how make a good film. As one reviewer here puts it, "This is John Ford's Edsel." For those not old enough to know what that means, it translates to "lemon," or in other words, a very bad movie.

When I saw this during its first release, I was, like most other viewers, thoroughly awed by William Clothier's magnificent handling of the 70mm cameras (although some scenes, unfortunately, had to be completed with quite evident manipulation of actors performing on a soundstage in front of previously photographed exterior shots, and some sets were much-too-obviously studio bound.) The casting of non-Native Americans didn't surprise me then, though I might now reluctantly join the ranks of those who would prefer otherwise. However, then we would miss Victor Jory, Sal Mineo, Gilbert Roland, Ricardo Montalban and the beautiful Dolores del Rio playing their roles with the requisite dignity and professional aplomb. Carroll Baker gives poignancy to her portrayal of a young Quaker woman, true to her convictions, and Richard Widmark and Edward G. Robinson enact Americans with a conscience, none too happy with the assignments required by their government. Karl Malden, as the brutal Capt. Wessels, doesn't beg for our forgiveness, to say the least. But I will agree with those who find the James Stewart sequence a jarring contrast to the presumed thrust of the narrative. My own take on that is the otherwise surprising absence of John Ford's customary over-reliance on sentimentality in this particular enterprise. At the very least when he made a movie with a setting in the Old West, he usually insisted upon using folk songs, sometimes ad nauseum, as background (and foreground) musical accompaniment, but here the very sophisticated Alex North is credited with the musical score, and its bitter strains are not at all typical of a John Ford production. I do not know if Mr. North was assigned to this project against Mr. Ford's preference, but that noted composer's contribution (He was nominated fourteen times for an Academy Award, though not for this one.) is one of his best and most appropriate accomplishments, to my ears. Except for his uncredited work on "Young Cassidy" and the truly atypical "Seven Women" starring Anne Bancroft which followed this major screen opus, John Ford made a final bow here that may not be his best but which unquestionably bears the mark of a master of the cinema.

A possibly well-meaning examination of a tragic part of US history that is turned into a pretentious bore of a film. This is little more than a lecture disguised as a movie. It goes on way too long with not much to show for it. John Ford, one of the all-time greats, commits the rookie director's mistake of thinking that solemn subject matter and excessive length automatically equal 'epic.' They do not. It's a film with more than a few stars but very few of them (such as Edward G. Robinson) get anything to do. Ultimately it's Richard Widmark's show and he grits his teeth through the whole thing, spitting out every line to further emphasize how disgusted he is with all the injustice. Unfortunately, the result of such a performance is it makes the audience (or me, at least) want to root against him. The most bizarre thing about this is the Jimmy Stewart part. After an interminably long and preachy first hour and half about the plight of the Cheyenne and the conflict with the white man, the movie abruptly shifts direction and turns into a comedy with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, played by Stewart and Arthur Kennedy. This lasts fifteen or twenty minutes before the film returns to the main story. What the hell was that even about?!? It's really not an enjoyable experience. White guilt movies aren't among my favorites but there have been some intelligent, thought-provoking ones that didn't put me to sleep or have me rolling my eyes. This is just an overlong sententious bore with a wasted cast, made by a director past his prime. Avoid unless you're a Ford completist or you're young and still in that "I just heard about all this bad stuff that happened a really long time ago and I'm angry about it" phase.

This movie is odd in that it truly looks like two completely different movies fused, not so seamlessly, together. The first 1/2 of the film is concerned with the plight of the Cheyenne people and their running from their horrible reservation land--starring Richard Widmark, Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland. The acting, direction and writing for this was superb. Then, there is a completely stupid and meaningless segment with a completely different cast. It fortunately only lasts about 20 minutes (that's short considering the overall length of the film). Jimmy Stewart is Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy is Doc Holladay. Neither plays their role very convincingly and little energy goes into their performances. The segment, believe it or not, is played comically and is neither interesting nor funny--and it completely disrupts the somber tone of the film. Then, abruptly, the film returns to the Richard Widmark portion for the remainder of the film. Without this horrible "guest shot" within the movie with Stewart and Kennedy, the film would probably merit a score of 9, as it really was a unique look at how some Indian tribes were forced into conflict by the reservation system. But, with it, the overall message is somewhat muddled and the movie just went on too long. It's sad, though, because the meaningless 15% of the film could easily be edited out to make a far more effective picture.

This film is the perfect counterpoint to early John Ford films such as Stagecoach. In Stagecoach every indian was painted as a bloodthirsty savage, out to menace all of the civilized folk. Cheyenne Autumn, on the other hand is a very revealing film... behind it all you can almost feel John Ford questioning himself and his previous views on American history. In this film it is the US soldiers who are painted as the brutal savages, and the indians are the civilized folk. It's amazing to see Ford, who practically built his career glorifying the chivalry of the western hero, do a complete 360 to end up de-glorifying it. I have the feeling that this was a very personal film for Ford and in that light it really does make him one of the great auteurs of cinema.

I rediscovered "Cheyenne Autumn" recently and must confess to finding the temptation to hail it as almost the greatest of the John Ford Westerns irresistable. I say "almost" as I realise that the claim needs a certain amount of caution. When set beside the formal perfection of "The Searchers", "My Darling Clementine" and even "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", "Cheyenne Autumn" has a few weak moments and certainly some longeurs. And yet it has a monumental sweep that somehow outstrips them all. Ford's final Western is an apologia for the white Americans' treatment of the American Indian and his own depiction of them as the bad guys in so much of his previous work. Here the Cheyenne are the victims of White oppression, forced to live far to the south of their natural homeland and desperate to return. Depleted in number mainly through illness and starvation they set out on the long trek north, beset on all sides by alien landscape conditions and the American cavalry in pursuit. These pathetic remnants of a once noble tribe now consist of little more than a group of women and children - very few of the male warriors are left - accompanied by a white Quaker woman who has befriended them. One American cavalry officer (Richard Widmark in one of his best performances) recognises their dilemma and does all he can to summon official awareness of their plight. In a sense this is one of the finest of all road movies, the protagonists forced to face the long journey home across a seemingly endless wilderness. Only through an inner determination are the remnants of the tribe able to make it. It is also one of cinema's most powerful documentations of man's inhumanity to man, not light years away from "Come and See" and Ford's own "The Prisoner of Shark Island". The film is badly flawed by the intrusion of a semi-comic interlude depicting Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday more intent on card play in Dodge City than in what is happening around them. This only serves to slow the pace of a film that is often prone to encompass peripheral detail to the detriment of moving purposefully forward. But who can quibble when the end result encompasses one magnificent image after another in William Clothier's splendid 'scope photography and the only music score - by Alex North - that ever did real justice to a Ford picture. For once we actually get away from those endless medleys of sentimental hymn and folk melodies with an astringency of style that matches the serious content of the film.