Review of
John
Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn, VHS tape
Three out of five stars
While the basic
storyline of this movie is a strong one, the powerful urge that dislocated
Native American tribes feel to return to their homeland, there is a section in
the middle that should be extricated. For it is an attempt to interject some humor
into the story, but it just falls flat.
Unlike many
other western movies that depict the Native Americans as savages, John Ford takes
a very compassionate look at how the Native Americans were treated by the
invading Europeans. A band of Cheyenne have been taken from their ancestral
lands where they can grow and hunt their own food to a desolate place where
they are dependent on government handouts.
When a
delegation of government officials fails to arrive to address the issues, the
leadership of the Cheyenne decide to leave the reservation and travel to the
area known as Yellowstone, which is approximately 1,500 miles away at a time
where there were no roads over the rough terrain.
Richard Widmark
stars as an Army officer that dislikes the order to round up the Cheyenne and
return them to the reservation. He clashes with another officer and does what
he can to argue the case for the Cheyenne to simply be allowed to go back. This
is a very good story and a bit of a history lesson.
What reduces
the movie’s quality is a segment in the middle where Jimmy Stewart plays Wyatt
Earp, a man most reluctant to enforce the law when it disturbs his card game. When
a cowboy challenges Earp to a gun duel, Wyatt shoots him in the foot and then
removes the bullet. The anesthetic is literally a bop on the head with a piece
of wood. When a ragtag army of townspeople leave Dodge City to go deal with the
Cheyenne the absurdity only expands. When a lone Cheyenne fires some shots, a
carriage full of well-dressed ladies is overturned and we all see their
bloomers and petticoats when they go legs up in the air. It is an attempt at
humor that just seems pointless.
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