CHEYENNE AUTUMN

US, 1964, 154 minutes, Colour.
Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Sal Mineo, Dolores del Rio, Ricardo Montalban, Gilbert Roland, Arthur Kennedy, Patrick Wayne, Elizabeth Allen, John Carradine, Victor Jory, Mike Mazurki, James Stewart, Edward G. Robinson.
Directed by John Ford.

Cheyenne Autumn was one of the last films directed by Ford after a career that began in the 1920s. He made his mark with action films in the 1930s, especially with The Hurricane and Stage Coach, launching John Wayne as a star after his being the leading actor in a lot of programmer westerns. He made a big impact during the 1930s with The Informer, winning best director, an award he also won with The Grapes of Wrath, How Green was My Valley and The Quiet Man.

While he had a wide-ranging repertoire, Ford is best remembered for his westerns. During the 1940s he made such classics as My Darling Clementine and Fort Apache as well as the cavalry films, Wagon Master, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande. During the 1950s he made the classic The Searchers. He contributed to How The West Was Won and this was his almost-swansong. He contributed to Young Cassidy and his last film, in 1966, was Seven Women.

A lot of Ford’s regulars appear in the cast led by Richard Widmark who appeared in Two Rode Together. The film was written by James R. Webb, a regular writer of westerns who began his writing career in the 1950s with some smaller-budget films but made a big impact in the 1960s with such films as The Big Country, Cape Fear, How The West Was Won (for which he won an Oscar) and Alfred the Great.

The film takes the side of the Indians, showing how they were put into the reservations, supplies not given to them, harassed. The Cheyenne then break out of the reserve and make a trek back to their hunting grounds. They are pursued by the cavalry. This is a film of the 1960s, emerging in 1964, the year after the civil rights march on Washington. There is a criticism that native American Indians were not used in the film – but this was the state of play in film-making at the time. Ford is very sympathetic to the Indians and their plight.

The film has an interlude in Dodge City with James Stewart and Arthur Kennedy as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday – which does not quite fit into the whole mood of the film. Ford said it was inserted so that the audience would have a kind of intermission from the main story and not have to go out of the theatre but stay with his film. The themes that Ford explored came to the fore in the late 1960s, early 1970s with such films as Little Big Man and Soldier Blue.

1. How interesting a western was this? How typical? Was it a spectacle or was it sortething more? As a tribute to the Cheyenne? How much did it presuppose, the background of the Cheyenne movement? Its setting? as a historical footnote?

2. How well did the film’s create its atmosphere in the beginning with the fort, the soldiers, the senate expectations of the fort, the military drill of the soldiers and their response to this? the preparing of the conflict between soldiers and Indians?

3. Your impression of the assembly of the Cheyenne for the senate visit? their standing all day, their collapsing? the humiliation of the Indians? How well did these sequences highlight what had happened to the Indians on the reservations? Preparing audience sympathy for the Indians and their flight? Did this adequately prepare for a just presentation of the conflict?

4. How did the film highlight Captain Archer as the hero of the film? How did it highlight his responsibility? How did it highlight his attitudes? Was Richard Widmark sympathetic in this role? Did this all prepare for a sense of realism in our watching the Cheyenne Autumn?

5. How attractive was Deborah as a heroine? The importance of her being a Quaker and the background of her non-violent Christianity? As a teacher, her relationship with her uncle? Her expectations of government and of Archer?

6. How well did the film introduce the government and Washington? How did this spread the responsibility into higher fields than army and Indian? the portrayals of attitudes when the official returned to Washington? The intricacies of Washington politics? Carl Schultz as minister of' the interior and his attitudes? manoeuvres and power struggles? What comment did the film make on public opinion?

7. The importance of the decision to migrate? What role did Dull Knife and Little Wolf have in this decision? What about the attitudes of Red Shirt? The Spanish woman? Deborah? How heroic a thing was their migration? If it had succeeded, what would have been the future of the Cheyenne?

8. Comment on the use of the blackboard technique for the messages between Deborah and Archer.

9. How well were the hardships of the flight visualised? Audience sympathy in these, eg the crossing of the river?

10. The drama and the suspense of the pursuit? How well was this handled, the intercutting of the two parties, the chase, suspense? Archer’s attitudes, Scott with his attitudes of his father killed in the massacre? The varying motivations of the soldiers pursuing the Cheyenne?

11. How impulsive was Red Shirt in firing the shot? The unnecessary fight? hostility that was growing? Was this inevitable?

12. What were your reactions to the information that went east? The papers and public opinion? Was this also inevitable?

13. How did the film show the pertinacity of the Cheyenne and their flight? Despite the difficulties? Was this convincing? The nature of their suffering?

14. How important was the interlude in Dodge City? How did it contrast with the rest of the film? Its insight into the white man, and his attitudes? the contrast of the decadence of Dodge City and the gambling, drinking, racist attitudes and the integrity of the Indians? The picture of the man who shot the Indians? The picture of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday? Why were they intertwined The use of James Stewart and Arthur Kennedy? Heroes of the West not acting heroically and contrasted with the Indians?

15. How important was the lobby of the eastern senators? Why?

16, What happened to the people involved in the chase? The skirmishes, Scott and his changed attitude, the major killed? the ordinary soldiers, top sergeant?

17. What happened to the Indians as they progressed further - under the train bridge, the snow? Deborah sharing their hardships, the death of the chief? the authority going to Little Wolf? attitudes of Dull Knife?

18. How important was the decision to split? Which side was right? Was it better to go into the fort? How hard was life in the fort? How ugly was the personality of Captain Wessels? His drink and his use of the letter of the law? His cruelty in locking up the Indians in freezing weather?

19. Did the doctor have any alternative but to attack Captain Wessels? The importance of Archer’s visit to the Secretary of the Interior and his presentation of the truth?

20. How desperate were the Indians and how necessary was their breakout? the ugliness of' the massacre and their escape? How necessary was it that Captain Wessels be relieved? Was this all inevitable? How necessary was it?

21. The importance of Archer’s return with the Secretary of the Interior? The importance of their encounter with the Indians and the reconciliation? Red Shirt being shot?

22. How well did the footnote end? To whose credit was the ending of the footnote? Could the whites be trusted? the irony of the comments in agreements with the Indians?

23. How important a western was this? insights into the Indians? The insights into the red man, the white man, war and oppression, civilisation and culture, power lobbies, money, endurance, courage?