Run of the Arrow (1957)
Posted: April 29th, 2014, 1:33 pm
Above: Rod Steiger in Run of the Arrow (1957), still steamed about the end of the Civil War.
The first time I tried to see Samuel Fuller's Run of the Arrow (1957), I couldn't get past leading man Rod Steiger's wavering brogue or his early scenes as a defeated Southern soldier hating the victors after the Civil War.
Above: Too subtle a poster for the hoi polloi?
This time this Western movie set in the post-Civil War era was on TCM when I was in another room. I thought that I heard Angie Dickinson on the tube. Trotting back to see what was on the set, I eventually learned that it was the Spanish singer-actress Sara Montiel, (playing an Indian maiden named Yellow Moccasin, complete with eyeliner and fifties-style foundation garments). It seems that her accented voice was dubbed by the then almost unknown Angie D., whose distinctively breathy speech makes her almost instantly identifiable. (I figure Angie did this job around the time of the production of Fuller's China Gate).
Above: Sara Montiel sounding a lot like Angie.
Despite this incongruity, the idea of a Confederate turning his back on his world and adopting another culture as his own (up to a point) was intriguing to me. As the un-reconciled Confederate rebel explains bitterly, "In my heart, my nation is Sioux" and he claims that he won't have any trouble killing "Americans," which in his mind means Unionists. That "cri de coeur" spoken by Steiger's O'Meara is really the crux of the story, which at its best, is about the knotted-up emotions of an individual tormented by his past as well as the human tragedies attendant on Manifest Destiny. It doesn't all work, but Fuller's intensity gives the more thoughtful aspects of the story an unexpected, if messy verve.
Above: Apparently, the ever-buff Charles Buchinsky (Charles Bronson) brought a good supply of baby oil to location.
I was fortunate enough to come upon this flick after Rod had beaten the other Sioux in a run that no white man is supposed to have completed. Charles Buchinsky, aka Charlie Bronson played a blue-eyed Native American who accepted Rod into the tribe. Viewers got to see almost as much of Mr. Bronson's marble-like form as his mama and wives. This viewer could have lived without that, frankly, though his characterization of this warrior is considerably more convincing than that of Jay C. Flippen. I normally adore Flippen & all his shambling, scene-stealing warmth, but as a Sioux Indian he never quite lost the look of a hoofer doing vaudeville turn during a sparsely attended (he hoped) matinee.
The rest of this beautifully photographed color movie was rather uneven, but Fuller's capacity for showing how people really behave despite their political and ethical beliefs has grown on me over time. The best scenes were those between Cavalry Officer Brian Keith and Rod Steiger, especially when the two mumbled about discussed the contradictions within Steiger's choices and beliefs.
This had also come up earlier when Rod told the Sioux he had no problem killing white men, but that the tribe should not expect him to give up being a Christian (guess The Sermon on the Mount didn't come up during Mass in Rod the Irishman's experience). As Rod explains it, God is the God of Liberty in all wars--even the Sioux's efforts to keep from being wiped out by the invasion Westward. At one point in a quiet scene with Keith, Rod said that he believed that the Civil War was about "preserving civilization" in the South, even though he said he didn't have a clue about the KKK, the human and economic cost of slavery or any of those high falutin' geopolitical details.
I must admit that I lost interest in the film once Ralph "Laughing Boy" Meeker arrived with his usual load of bile and the film became increasingly violent (and realistic). The conclusion, which I won't spoil for anyone, has a real poignancy, but I don't think I will try to see this again soon--even though I am recording Verboten! (1959) on TCM later today. More about that one later...