Cheyenne Autumn

Cheyenne Autumn
Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Ford
Produced by John Ford
Bernard Smith
Written by Mari Sandoz (non-fiction history)
James R. Webb
Based on The Last Frontier
1941 novel
by Howard Fast
Starring Richard Widmark
Carroll Baker
James Stewart
Dolores del Río
Edward G. Robinson
Karl Malden
Music by Alex North
Cinematography William H. Clothier
Edited by Otho Lovering
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date
 October 3, 1964
Running time
 154 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $3,500,000 (US/ Canada rentals)[1]

Cheyenne Autumn is a 1964 epic and western film starring Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart, and Edward G. Robinson. It tells the story of a factual event, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-9, told in "Hollywood style" using a great deal of artistic license. The film was the last western directed by John Ford, who proclaimed it an elegy for the Native Americans who had been abused by the U.S. government and misrepresented by many of the director's own films. With a budget of more than $4 million, the film was relatively unsuccessful at the box office and failed to earn a profit for its distributor Warner Bros.

Plot

In 1878, Chiefs Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalbán) and Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland) led over three hundred starved and weary Cheyenne Indians from their reservation in the Oklahoma Territory to their former traditional home in Wyoming. The U.S. government sees this as an act of rebellion, and the sympathetic Captain Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark) of the U.S. Army is forced to lead his troops in an attempt to stop the tribe. As the press misrepresents the natives' motives and goals for their trek as malicious, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson) tries to prevent violence from erupting between the Army and the natives. Also featured are James Stewart as Marshal Wyatt Earp, Dolores del Río as "Spanish Woman", and Carroll Baker as a pacifist Quaker school teacher and Archer's love interest.

Cast

Silent film star Mae Marsh appears uncredited in her last film role.

Production

Preproduction

John Ford long wanted to make a movie about the Cheyenne exodus. As early as 1957, he wrote a treatment with his son Patrick Ford, envisioning a small-scale drama with non-professional Indian actors. Early drafts of the script drew on Howard Fast's novel The Last Frontier. However, the film ultimately took its plot and title from Mari Sandoz's Cheyenne Autumn, which Ford preferred due to its focus on the Cheyenne. Elements of Fast's novel remain in the finished film, namely the character of Captain Archer (called Murray in the book), the depiction of Secretary Carl Schurz and the Dodge City, Kansas scenes.[2]

Reluctantly abandoning the docudrama idea, Ford wanted Anthony Quinn and Richard Boone to play Dull Knife and Little Wolf as well-known actors with some Indian ancestry. He also suggested black actor Woody Strode for a role. The studio insisted on Ford's casting Ricardo Montalbán and Gilbert Roland.[3]

Filming

The film was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by William H. Clothier, whose work was nominated for an Academy Award. Gilbert Roland earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Editing

The original version was 158 minutes, Ford's longest work. Warner Bros. later decided to edit the "Dodge City" sequence out of the film, reducing the running time to 145 minutes, although it was shown in theaters during the film's initial release. This sequence features James Stewart as Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holliday. Some critics have argued that this comic episode, mostly unrelated to the rest of an otherwise serious movie, breaks the flow of the story.[4][5] It was later restored for the VHS and subsequent DVD releases.

Locations

Much of the film was shot in Monument Valley Tribal Park on the Arizona-Utah border, where Ford had filmed scenes for many of his earlier films, especially Stagecoach and The Searchers. Parts of the film also were shot at the San Juan River at Mexican Hat, Professor Valley, Castle Valley, the Colorado River, Fisher Canyon, and Arches in Utah.[6] Although the principal tribal leaders were played by Ricardo Montalbán and Gilbert Roland (as well as Dolores del Río and Sal Mineo in major roles), Ford again used numerous members of the Navajo tribe in this production.

Casting

Ford used Navajo people to portray the Cheyenne. Dialogue that is supposed to be the "Cheyenne language" is actually Navajo. This made little differences to white audiences, but for Navajo communities, the film became very popular because the Navajo actors openly were using ribald and crude language that had nothing to do with the film. For example, during the scene where the treaty is signed, the chief's solemn speech just pokes fun at the size of the colonel's penis. Academics now consider this an important moment in the development of Native Americans' identity because they are able to mock Hollywood's historical interpretation of the American West.[7]

Reception

The reviews were mixed. Bosley Crowther, critic for The New York Times, praised it highly, calling it "a beautiful and powerful motion picture that stunningly combines a profound and passionate story of mistreatment of American Indians with some of the most magnificent and energetic cavalry-and-Indian lore ever put upon the screen."[4] He was disappointed, however, that after the humorous (if "superfluous") Dodge City sequence, "the picture does not rise again to its early integrity and authenticity", and the climax is "neither effective and convincing drama nor is it faithful to the novel".[4] The New Yorker's Richard Brody cited the "rueful, elegiac grandeur of John Ford's final Western".[8]

Variety disagreed, however, calling it "a rambling, episodic account" in which "the original premise of the Mari Sandoz novel is lost sight of in a wholesale insertion of extraneous incidents which bear little or no relation to the subject."[9]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

Award nominations

See also

References

  1. ↑ This figure consists of anticipated rentals accruing distributors in North America. See "Big Rental Pictures of 1965", Variety, 5 January 1966 p 6
  2. ↑ McBride, Joseph. Searching for John Ford: A Life. pp. 644–646.
  3. ↑ McBride 652
  4. 1 2 3 Crowther, Bosley (December 24, 1964). "Cheyenne Autumn (1964)". The New York Times.
  5. ↑ Schwartz, Dennis (January 2, 2006). "A big mess". Ozus' World Movie Reviews. Retrieved September 9, 2013.
  6. ↑ D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1st ed.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 9781423605874.
  7. ↑ Real, Michael R. (1996). Exploring Media Culture: A Guide. SAGE. p. 271. ISBN 0803958773.
  8. ↑ Brody, Richard (December 17, 2012). "Cheyenne Autumn". The New Yorker.
  9. ↑ "Review: "Cheyenne Autumn"". Variety.
  10. ↑ "AFI's 10 Top 10 Nominees" (PDF). Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
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