Reeling Backward: "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964)

I was surprised by how inert and ineffective "Cheyenne Autumn" is. I've been meaning to catch up with it for years and came away quite disappointed from the experience.

The film is seminal for a couple of reasons: it was John Ford's last Western, and it was pretty much the first deliberate attempt by Hollywood to cast American Indians in a positive light, showing how they were ill-used by the American government as it expanded into the West.

It's based on a real bit of history, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-79, during which hundreds of native people left the harsh, arid reservation land that had been set aside for them and traveled more than 1,000 miles north to their ancestral home. There were several skirmishes with the U.S. military along the way, and newspapers of the day portrayed it as a rampaging army of Indians on the warpath.

In truth, they were largely elderly, women and children, and posed no threat to anyone unless their trek was opposed.

The movie was actually based on two novels, "The Last Frontier" by Howard Fast and "Cheyenne Autumn" by Mari Sandoz, though only the latter received a screen credit. Screenwriter James L. Webb had recently won an Oscar for another Western, "How the West Was Won," of which Ford directed one of the five sequences. They ended up reusing a lot of the same talent for this picture, including stars Richard Widmark and Carroll Baker, Webb and Ford.

"Cheyenne" can't quite decide who is its main character. Its heart seems to lie with the Indians, particularly Little Wolf and Dull Knife, the two main leaders of the Northern Cheyenne tribe. They're played by Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland, respectively, both actors of Mexican heritage. Italian-American Sal Mineo plays Dull Knife's hot-headed son, Red Shirt. Most of the other Cheyenne are played by Navajo, and speak in their own language during the film.

But Widmark is put front and center as Capt. Thomas Archer, a fictional Army officer assigned to make them stay put, and later pursue them after they begin their exodus. He's a sympathetic figure torn between his military obligations and his own recognition of the suffering of the Cheyenne. Baker plays Deborah Wright, a Quaker devoted to educating the Indian children who ends up tagging along on their quest.

Their tepid romance is barely sketched in the early part of the film, then quietly tucked away for the rest. There isn't even a big reunion scene and kiss at the end. They have a little cheeky repartee, addressing each other as "Friend Deborah" and "Friend Thomas" in the Quaker way.

The movie's pacing staggers this way and that, an occasional fight scene between the Cheyenne and Army with lots of talking in between. Archer tries to convince his superiors to show the Cheyenne more respect and restraint, but it falls on deaf ears. Eventually he takes his case directly to the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson).

Karl Malden has a small but vigorous role as an Army officer who imprisons the Cheyenne on orders, leaving them to freeze and starve to death in a warehouse because he's too afraid to take other action without authorization. The character refers to himself as a Russian, though his accent sounds more German to these ears. Perhaps we'll be generous and say Malden was going for Prussian, and leave it at that.

Patrick Wayne, son of John, has a small part as an impetuous young officer Archer has to continually reprimand. John Carradine turns up in Dodge City as a gambling gentleman.

The music by Alex North is quite good, but often too obtrusive. There's an opening piece and an intermission that is probably unnecessary.

By far the biggest problem with the film is the Dodge City sequence. It arrives just before the intermission, and completely rips the audience out of the story of the Cheyenne.

It stars Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holiday, portrayed here as peevish, aging gamblers who have taken up the offices of sheriff and deputy simply to allow them to sit in the saloon and play cards all day. They want nothing to do with the Cheyenne "horde" passing nearby, and Earp even contrives to lead the ad-hoc force of vengeful vigilantes in a different direction.

It's a weird, weird sequence that belongs in another movie. It's completely comedic in tone, right down to a saloon wench losing her dress and some vagrant cowpunchers getting one-upped by the wily Wyatt. One wonders what Ford and Webb were thinking including it in the film, especially seeing as the original cut was creeping up on three hours -- Ford's longest movie.

Indeed, after being initially released in theaters the Dodge City section was cut out, and wisely so. Most modern versions on video include it, to the detriment of the overall experience. This is where the "chapter skip" button comes in handy.

"Cheyenne Autumn" is undeniably a magnificent-looking film, shot largely in Ford's beloved Monument Valley with widescreen and lots of vivid colors. Cinematographer William H. Clothier deservedly received the film's sole Academy Award nomination.

At the time of its release, John Ford publicly declared "Cheyenne Autumn" to be an elegy for the Native American. It says something of the man that during his lifetime he came to recognize that his own work bore a great deal of responsibility for the popular depiction of Indians as whooping savages, and it was something he regretted.

He tried to get the movie made for years without success. When he finally did, it was his longest and most expensive project, and one of the few that was a commercial failure. Ill health and a lack of confidence from the studios resulted in Ford only completing one other feature film.

It's such a shame that one of the greatest movie directors ended his career on such a sour note. John Ford's song of regret for the Indian, while noble in purpose, is a discordant and dull affair.

Reeling Backward: "The Ten Commandments" (1956)

It's funny; when "The Ten Commandments" sticks to the letter of Biblical scripture, it's rather overwrought and stiff, despite the at-the-time incredible special effects of the parting of the Red Sea and columns of fire.

But the bulk of the early going, which is mostly Hollywood B.S. based on historical conjecture about Moses' life until age 30, is riveting and packs a lot of emotional punch.

I thought Charlton Heston gives a marvelous performance as a prince of Egypt who learns he's the son of Hebrew slaves, a man honor-bound to do the right thing even at great personal cost. Once he obtains the white fright wig and starts delivering declarations to the masses instead of speaking dialogue to other characters, though, the film goes into a mortal tailspin.

The great Cecil B. DeMille seemed to sense this, too, since about three-quarters of the film's famous 3 hour, 39 minute run time is devoted to the preamble of Moses convincing the pharaoh to "let my people go." Once they're actually let go, the movie speeds up to almost a dangerous canter, spinning fecklessly through the creation of the commandments, years of wandering in the wilderness, conflicts between the great Hebrew tribes, etc.

Nominated for the the Academy Award for Best Picture, "The Ten Commandments" ended up losing to another even more unworthy epic, "Around the World in 80 Days." Its lack of Oscar nominations in anything other than the "minor categories" is probably indicative that it wasn't really a favorite going in. It failed to garner any acting nods, though Heston got a Golden Globe nomination.

Even its spectacular sets, purported to be the largest ever built, didn't win in the art direction category, nor the extravagant and beautiful costumes. In the end, the film won only one Oscar for special effects.

In the foursome of screenerwriters' version of the tale, Moses was a Hebrew babe placed in a basket on the river Nile to escape the wrath of the pharaoh, reacting to the prophecy of a deliverer who would free the race of slaves. He was plucked from the waters by Bithiah (Nina Foch), sister of Pharaoh -- his name means "to draw forth" -- and raised as her own.

Flash three decades forward, and Moses has become the main rival of Rameses II, deliciously played by Yul Brynner in full strut-and-pout mode. The only son of Pharaoh Sethi (Cedric Hardwicke), the egotistical and vain Rameses seethes as his father favors his cousin to succeed him upon the throne. Moses has just conquered all of Ethiopia -- keep an eye out for Woody Strode as the King of Ethiopia, and later as one of Bithiah's bearers -- and succeeds in building Sethi's "treasure city" where Rameses failed.

The "brothers," as they refer to themselves, are not only competing for the crown but also the hand of Nefretiri (Anne Baxter), the "house daughter" who must marry the next pharaoh. She and Moses love each other deeply, though Nefretiri turns out to be quite the scheming vixen. It's she who reveals the truth about Moses' heritage to him. Later, now married to Rameses and mother to his child, she convinces the pharaoh to defy Moses' call to free the slaves, resulting in a series of plagues and a terrible backlash against her own family.

I should mention that at one point only Moses and Nefretiri know about his heritage, and he's all but wrapped up the throne. He could've just waited until the elderly Sethi died and then, as pharaoh, freed all the slaves by edict rather than resulting in thousands of horrible deaths. But, as I learned from years of Sunday school, religious types aren't too keen on you pointing out massive plot holes in the Good Book.

Edward G. Robinson has a terrifically fun role as Dathan, a Hebrew slavemaster who schemes against his own people and, when Moses is busy on Mount Sinai obtaining the word of God upon the stone tablets, whips them into a frenzy of idolatry. In perhaps the film's most ridiculous moment, Moses doesn't just break the tablets in fury, he actually hurls them at Dathan and the golden calf, causing them explode and fall into a rift in the earth that swallows everything.

(This leads directly to the second silliest, a throwaway line in the last scene where Moses is forced to explain how they got the remains of the Ten Commandments back, so they could be placed in the Ark of the Covenant and thus "Raiders of the Lost Ark" could be made. He blathers something about the stone tablets, "which were restored to us." So God replaced the exploded commandments, but only in their broken form?)

I was slightly cheesed off that at no point in the movie does Robinson sneer, "Where's your Moses now?!?" Turns out that was just a Billy Crystal routine, a bit of made-up showbiz lore, like Bogie never actually uttering the words "Play it again, Sam."

Other notable actors include John Derek as Joshua, a foolhardy stonecutter who becomes Moses' chief lieutenant; John Carradine as Moses' brother Aaron, who actually performs most of the miracles with his sibling's shepherd staff; Debra Paget as Lilia, a pretty Jewess who catches Dathan's eye; Martha Scott as Yochabel, Moses' real mother; Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora, Moses' long-suffering Bedouin wife; and Vincent Price as Baka, chief stone builder for the Egyptians.

I was struck how fleshy and sensual the movie is. Released prior to the MPAA system, it was awarded a "G" rating for its subsequent theatrical re-releases, which seems rather tame for a movie in which not a lot of clothing is worn, and women dance quite lasciviously on numerous occasions. In a rare bit of historical accuracy for this era of filmmaking, most of the cast is dusky-skinned, whether naturally or with help from makeup.

"The Ten Commandments" remains a great piece of entertainment, a full-of-itself package of Hollywood spectacle, at once haughty, laughable and glorious. I'll be interested to see if Ridley Scott's "Exodus," which is to be released later this year, can find as much treasure in the after-slavery portion of the Moses myth as this movie did in the before part.

Reeling Backward: "The Stranger" (1946)

I had never heard of "The Stranger," but it was actually Orson Welles' most commercially successful directorial effort -- the only one, really. Coming out in 1946, it played on a lot of anti-Nazi hysteria about fascists hiding out among us after World War II. Welles is the supposed mastermind of the Holocaust, Franz Kindler, while Edward G. Robinson is the dogged G-man on his trail.

It seems Kindler has passed himself off as doddering professor Charles Rankin, who works at a boy's school in the Rockwellian town of Harper, Conn. He's even set to marry lovely girl next door Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), whose father is a Supreme Court justice (Philip Merivale), don'cha know.

It's the perfect disguise ... well, actually no. The best place to hide would not be in the heart of your greatest Allied enemy's country, where hordes of investigators are searching for runaway Nazis. All those stories about Hitler secretly living in Argentina were batty, but at least the Fuhrer hypothetically chose the right sort of location.

Switch it around and ask if it makes sense: If the Axis had won the war, do you think General Eisenhower would've hidden out in Hamburg, Germany?

The story is filled with a lot of holes and illogic, but it decently boils the plot. It also features some wonderfully inky photography by Russell Metty. Welles would later be associated with the film noir genre, most notably "Touch of Evil," but it was interesting to see him doing some early dabbling in that visual style.

There are a couple of scenes where Robinson acts in virtual darkness, with just one eye or a slice of his jaw clearly visible in the light. Welles also uses a lot of extreme close-ups, especially on himself, which has the intended disconcerting effect. (It also shows that Welles, at age 31, still struggled with acne.)

Oddly, the cinematography did not receive an Oscar nomination, but the film's one nod from the Academy was in the category where it most definitely did not deserve to be lauded: the screenplay. It's a jumble of mismatched characters and plot devices, with people doing things not because it makes sense but because the story needs to get from point A to B.

The script has a somewhat  mysterious provenance, too. Victor Trivas received the Oscar nomination for Best Original Story, but Anthony Veiller is actually credited with penning the screenplay. Decla Dunning also helped adapt Trivas' story, and reportedly John Huston and Welles himself tinkered around with it, too.

Wilson, the Nazi hunter played by Robinson, has an especially tough job in catching Kindler. Despite being the wunderkind of the Third Reich, he was very secretive and no photos of him are available. He decides to free Konrad Meinike (Konstantin Shayne), a collaborator of Kindler's, from prison in the hopes he'll lead them straight to the main quarry.

This is exactly what happens, but Kindler kills Meinike before Wilson can make the connection, having been bonked over the head with a sandbag in the gym. Kindler leaves Meinike's body just a few steps into the forest surrounding the town, throwing a few shovelfuls of dirt and leaves over it.

For a supposed genius who conceived and executed the mass extermination of Jews, Kindler has a pretty weak M.O. for disposing of one dead man.

Wilson makes the connection that Rankin is Kindler because of a comment during dinner. Kindler advocates an extreme form of retribution against the defeated Germans -- basically, wipe them all out, including women and children. He also disputes that Karl Marx was a German, because he was a Jew. He also has a keen interest in fixing the town's elaborate clock tower, and Kindler was known to be a nut for the stuff.

The creepiest, and most effective part of the film is Kindler/Rankin's relationship with his wife. Mary at first defends her husband, refusing to believe the man she fell in love with could be a mass murderer. But as he comes to see her as the weak link in his alibi, Kindler soon turns his evil eye upon her.

All this leads up to an inevitable confrontation up in the clock tower where Kindler is hiding out after his cover his blown. Because, yeah, that's the last place anyone would think to look for him! But a Nazi who's stupid enough to hide out in America is probably also dumb enough to hole up in a place that everyone in town knows he frequents, and lacks any sort of escape route.

The final showdown is kind of interesting, even if the build-up to it is daffy. Notably, it's Mary who fires the fatal shots that lead to Kindler's death -- the betrayed woman exacting her revenge. The depiction is also rather violent, with Kindler getting impaled by the sword of the mechanical angel in front of the clock, which continually trades places with a winged devil. Subtle enough for you?

With its heavy-handed symbolism and dippy character construction, "The Stranger" is hardly one of best films in the Welles oeuvre, even if it is one of the better-looking.

Reeling Backward: "Destroyer"

"Destroyer" is a pretty conventional bit of World War II propaganda. It's amazing to think now about how the movie industry was turned to promoting the war effort. I'm not sure if people even stopped and thought about it -- back then, everybody assumed we were all in it together.

Can you imagine our modern-day entertainment industry cranking out films supporting the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, one after another, almost from the day our troops set foot in the Middle East? The very idea is ludicrous.

Back then, movie stars also joined the military in droves, or at least flew around selling war bonds and other such things. After making "Destroyer," Glenn Ford enlisted with the Marines, where he spent the war working as a motion picture technician and hosting a radio program.

Up until then, Ford's film career was nothing to shake a stick at. After the war he came back with "Gilda," his big breakthrough role. (On a side note, I've had "Gilda" DVR'd for awhile now, and keep meaning to get to it. But for whatever reason, I've had a hankering for war pictures recently.)

It's interesting to think of Glenn Ford as a young man, and playing a character who's cocky and headstrong. The star persona of Ford is of a man who's middle-aged but still physically capable, with deep convictions and sense of honor, who believes in thinking before acting -- basically, he was Dad. But perhaps I'm conditioned to think of him that way, since like most people of my generation my first experience with Glenn Ford was playing the father in "Superman."

Here he plays Mickey Donohue, a naval chief who butts head with Steve "Boley" Boleslvaski (Edward G. Robinson), a tough old sailor who's just come out of retirement to fight in the war. Boley served aboard the first destroyer John Paul Jones during WWI, and became a shipbuilder who helped oversee the construction of her replacement. When he learns that the ship will be commanded by an officer he used to serve with, he agrees to re-enlist.

Things don't go smoothly for Boley. He has the right ideas about how to keep a crew tight and orderly, but he's simply so far behind the times that he keeps lousing things up. He orders the gun crews to keep their sights right on target aircraft, rather than leading them, because he never had to fight against airplanes in the first World War. He doesn't even know that the new artillery guns are loaded from the breech, not from the muzzle.

Eventually Boley gets busted down in rank, and now must report to Donohue, his arch-enemy. Little does he know that the much younger Donohue has been wooing his daughter (Marguerite Chapman) during shore leave.

At one point it appears that the new John Paul Jones is a cursed ship, and gets reassigned to mail-carrying duty. A bunch of the crewman request to transfer off, and Robinson gives a rousing speech where he invokes the story of the ship's namesake. Of course, they decide to stay on. Because that's the way things were back then -- or at least, how Hollywood would like us to think it was.

3 stars