There is an article to be written about Disney’s relationship with native populations. Someday, I’ll probably write it; goodness knows there’s enough of my own back catalog to use in going over it all. We’re not even limited to Native Americans, here, though that’s where we’re going today. This is even another one of those movies where about half the Native American characters are played by Native Americans and half are white dudes in redface. And that’s just major characters. This whole movie is a lot, is what I’m saying.
Smith (Glenn Ford) is a rancher whose family is skirting the edge of desperation. He lives with his wife, Norah (Nancy Olson), and son, Alpie (Christopher Shea, four years after he told us What Christmas Is All About, Charlie Brown). It appears the local Native population comes and goes on his land, sometimes to his detriment. Ol’ Antoine (Chief Dan George) turns out to be hiding Gabriel Jimmyboy (Frank Ramírez from Colombia), who is wanted for murder, on his land. The local deputy, Vince Heber (Keenan Wynn), is basically all-in on hanging Jimmyboy.
When is this set? Well, that’s a good question. Ol’ Antoine gets a dramatic courtroom scene wherein he recites the “I will fight no more forever” speech, which he claims to have been at. The time with Chief Joseph is referenced as having been seventy years earlier. If that’s the speech, that puts the movie in 1947. Either way, quite a lot of the attitudes in this movie feel shockingly out of date. I’m not sure the movie realizes quite how racist Norah is. She actually says the Native Americans are children at one point, and I’m not entirely sure the movie agrees.
Walter Charlie (Warren Oates), who serves as an interpreter for the court, literally strikes me as being developmentally disabled. There is not a single Native American character in the movie who fails to speak in broken English, including that supposed interpreter. The courtroom scene includes a lot of Native American extras looking serious and annoyed at the white people’s laughter, and rightfully so, but only the white guy does anything proactive about it. I don’t really approve of what he did, but still, it’s something. I suppose it’s also true that the white dude can get away with it easier.
I also don’t know where the movie is set, exactly. Idaho, it seems, but yeah. More accurately, what is the “native language” the subtitles say everyone is speaking? They never say. Chief Dan George—who acts the hell out of his one big dramatic scene—is from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in North Vancouver. (This was actually his first movie; he didn’t start acting until the age of sixty.) Jay Silverheels, who has a minor role in it, was Mohawk and Seneca. One suspects that the language they had in common was, you know, English.
And I mean, spoilers for a movie you almost certainly don’t want to watch, but I’m also disappointed at the ending. Chief Dan George recites the speech, and . . . that’s kind of it? Honestly I was hoping that it would turn out that Keenan Wynn had framed Jimmyboy for the murder. As it turns out, no one’s even sure if it actually was a murder or if it was an accidental death. We hear almost no details, but it turns out the wound could have gone either way, and there were only witnesses to Jimmyboy’s climbing out the window after the victim died—and the witness was Keenan Wynn. Tell me that doesn’t scream “he was framed,” especially given Jimmyboy doesn’t remember anything because of how drunk he was.
The movie touches on a lot of little details about discrimination suffered by Native Americans, but by focusing on a white dude—whose own actual son even calls him Smith—we don’t really get any of the details. The faces of the extras in the courtroom scene say a lot that the movie itself does not. The victim is described as having run illegal gambling and selling illegal alcohol, and Keenan Wynn (his character does have a name, as established, but who cares?) has been turning a blind eye. In a better movie, he would’ve been been getting a cut and killed the guy (he has a name, but since he never shows up, does it matter?) as part of a fight, then framed someone and tried to get him lynched. This is not a better movie.
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