BUFFALO BILL

US, 1944, 90 minutes, Colour.
Joel Mc Crea, Maureen O’ Hara, Linda Darnell, Thomas Mitchell, Edgar Buchanan, Anthony Quinn.
Directed by William A. Wellman.

Buffalo Bill is an entertainment made during World War Two. It recreates the legend of William Frederick Cody, Buffalo Bill. He began life as an army scout – and later in life was the head of a Wild West touring show.

Joel Mc Crea, a veteran of many westerns, especially small-budget westerns during the 1950s, is a straight-up-and-down Buffalo Bill. History tells us that his life was much more complicated, even in his marriage. Here his wife is portrayed by Maureen O’ Hara who had emerged on the Hollywood scene a few years before with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and had become one of Hollywood’s great leading ladies. Linda Darnell was at the beginning of her career and appears as an Indian teacher. Anthony Quinn was appearing at this time in ethnic roles and is the Cheyenne war chief who opposes Buffalo Bill. Thomas Mitchell, who had won an Oscar for his performance in Stage Coach, is Ned Buntline, Buffalo Bill’s PR man.

The film is a mythical re-creation of the west, the world of cowboys versus Indians, of military versus Indian chiefs. However, Buffalo Bill was to make a great success of his touring Wild West show with Annie Oakley. This was dramatised musically in Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun.

William A. Wellman directed the first Oscar-winning film in 1928, Wings. He directed a great range of films from the 20s to the 60s including serious films like The Oxbow Incident and The Story of GI Joe, Magic Town and The Iron Curtain. He made many westerns including Yellow Sky, Westward the Women, Across the Wide Missouri.

1. How enjoyable and impressive a western? Its impact in its own time, now?

2. How typical of the forties biography films was this? The use of the actors and their impact in their day? The scope of the film, location photography and colour?

3. What conventions of the western did the film use, the guide, the Indians, the army, the railroad? Were these conventions well and originally used or in an ordinary way?

4. Why audience interest in Buffalo Bill? Bill as a hero of the west? Insight into a hero and a man, and his impact in the west and America?

5. How well and interestingly did the film portray and probe Bill's character in incidents, the initial saving of the wagon party? his guiding the army, his friendship and hostility with the Indians? hid relationship with Yellow Hand, his relationship with Dawn being used by the army and their disregarding his advice, his love for Louisa, marriage, the birth of the son, his decision to stay in the west, the truth about his heroism and activities? How did he become a western hero, a legend? The blending of truth and fiction? Is this the nature of legend? People’s response to truth and fiction?

6. How important was the theme of Buffalo Bill and his relationship with the Indians? The tradition of a white man brought up to fight the Indians? The impact on Bill’s life? Yet his respect for the Indians’ way of life and culture? His relationship with Yellow Hand, the debts, the challenge to Yellow Hand and his death? How do you explain the complexity of attitudes in Bill as regards the Indians? Its being brought to a head in the banquet? His suffering because of his views on the Indians? The importance of his establishing an education programme for Americans, the Birth of the show and its success?

7. How well portrayed was the Indian theme? Its impact in the forties and now? the sympathetic look at the Cheyenne and the Sioux? Criticism of their cruelty and behaviour? The personality of Yellow Hand, his portrayal? Dawn and her love for Bill? Her work for the white children in the school? The attitude of people like Louisa and the army’s thinking about the savagery of the Indians? The significance of what Bill was saying at the dinner? The importance of his suffering? Was the show a Good way of educating Americana or was it an exploitation of the west?

8. How emotional a western heroine was Louisa? Her attitude towards the Indians, the daughter of a Senator, her being changed by Bill, her encounter with Dawn, with the dress, the birth of her son, the help of the old Indian woman, her mistake in going East, her 1oneliness, the death of the son, the credibility of her return to Bill and her support?

9. How well portrayed was the character of Buntline? His sharing the attitudes of Easterners towards the Indians? His journalism and exploiting the situations? His friendliness for Bill and support? The importance of hie novels and the popularisation of Bill? The sequence at the railway station? His support of Bill and helping him be rehabilitated?

10. How attractive was the character of Dawn? As an Indian, with the bitterness towards the whites, yet educating the whites, the importance of the sequence of her dress, her questions about beauty? Teaching lessons, leaving the school? The pathos of her death?

11. How well was the character of Yellow Hand portrayed, the dignity of an Indian chief, as explained by Bill? The question of deaths, the questions of courage, and of alliances with the Sioux?

12. The unsympathetic presentation of the Easterners and audience reaction to this? The role of the army and the stupidity of the leaders? The arrogance and inhumanity towards the Indian people? The unnecessary wars for greed and the railroad? The railway man’s speech at the dinner? The bitterness of the Easterners in hounding Bill?

13. The Indian fighting, the reasons, unnecessary cruelty and death? the strategies, these wars as seen now as history?

I4. The pathos sequences of Bill at the carnival and the loss of his former pride?

15. Was this a typical or untypical western? The nature of legend, the nature of truth?