5/25/2023 0 Comments Cheyenne autumn![]() Dialogue that is supposed to be in the " Cheyenne language" is actually Navajo. 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.įord used Navajo people to portray the Cheyenne. 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. 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. It was later restored for the VHS and subsequent DVD releases. Some critics have argued that this comic episode, mostly unrelated to the rest of an otherwise serious movie, breaks the flow of the story. This sequence features James Stewart as Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holliday. 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. The original version was 158 minutes, Ford's longest work. Gilbert Roland earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by William Clothier, whose work was nominated for an Academy Award. The studio insisted on Ford's casting Ricardo Montalbán and Gilbert Roland. He also suggested black actor Woody Strode for a role. 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. 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. 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. Early drafts of the script drew on Howard Fast's novel The Last Frontier. As early as 1957, he wrote a treatment with his son Patrick Ford, envisioning a small-scale drama with non-professional Indian actors. John Ford long wanted to make a movie about the Cheyenne exodus. Infantry captain in the fort before Fort RobinsonĬolonel at Victory Cave whose orders are challenged by Carl Schurz Skinny, cattle drive trail boss also in Dodge CityĮntertainer in Dodge City with Miss Plantagenet One-armed senator whom Carl Schurz addresses as "Henry" Trooper Smith, whom Archer calls "Jones" and then "Brown" Trooper Plumtree who is told by Archer to check for visiting congressmen Telegraph operator sharing coffee with Captain Archer Quaker elder Jeremy Wright, Deborah Wright's uncle Robinson as the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz in their own green and fertile country, 1500 miles to the north." The promises that had led them to give up their own way of life. when the white man sent them here more than a year ago. their three great chiefs prayed over the sacred bundle. as out of place in this desert as eagles in a cage. which was then called Indian Territory.īut this wasn't just another day to the Cheyenne. in that vast barren land in the American Southwest. It dawned like any other day on the Cheyenne reservation. Opening scene narrated by Richard Widmark 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. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz tries to prevent violence from erupting between the Army and the natives. As the press misrepresents the natives' motives and goals for their trek as malicious, the U.S. Army is forced to lead his troops in an attempt to stop the tribe. government sees this as an act of rebellion, and the sympathetic Captain Thomas Archer of the U.S. In 1878, Chiefs Little Wolf and Dull Knife lead over three hundred starved and weary Cheyenne Indians from their reservation in the Oklahoma Territory to their former traditional home in Wyoming. 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. government and misrepresented by many of the director's own films. 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. It tells the story of a factual event, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878–79, told in "Hollywood style" using a great deal of artistic license. Cheyenne Autumn is a 1964 American epic Western film starring Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart, and Edward G.
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