Tom Jeffords finds a wounded 14-year-old Apache boy dying from buckshot wounds in his back. The boy first tries to attack him, but Jeffords gives him water and treats his wounds, staying with him until he heals. The boy's tribesmen appear and are initially hostile but free Jeffords after the boy convinces them that he is a good man who helped him. However, when a group of gold prospectors approaches, the Apaches gag Jeffords and tie him to a tree. He watches helplessly as they attack the prospectors and torture the survivors. The warriors warn him not to enter Apache territory again.
When Jeffords returns to Tucson, he encounters a prospector who escaped the ambush. He corrects a man's exaggerated account of the attack, but Ben Slade does not understand why Jeffords did not kill the Apache boy. Jeffords replies by defending his choice.
Jeffords declines the army's request to scout Apache territory and instead learns the Apache language and customs from an Indian guide who lives among the townspeople. He plans to approach the Apache leader Cochise's stronghold on behalf of his friend Milt, who is in charge of the mail service in Tucson. The mail has not been reaching its destinations because of Apache raids, and Jeffords believes that the discussion may be a starting point for a peace treaty. He enters the Apache stronghold and talks with Cochise, who agrees to let the mail couriers through. The men realize that their underlying morality is similar, and Cochise is impressed with Jeffords' bravery and willingness to learn his language. Jeffords meets and falls in love with an Apache squaw named Sonseeahray.
Despite the agreement, Apaches attack an army wagon train and kill the survivors. The townsfolk try to lynch Jeffords as a traitor for working with their enemies before he is saved by principled general Oliver Otis Howard, who recruits him to negotiate a wider peace treaty with Cochise. They devise a peace treaty with Cochise, but a group led by Geronimo oppose it and leave the stronghold. When the renegades ambush a stagecoach, Jeffords seeks help from Cochise, and the stagecoach is saved with the Apaches' help.
Jeffords and Sonseeahray marry in an Apache ceremony. Slade's son visits Jeffords and Cochise to inform them about two of his horses stolen by Cochise's people. Cochise doubts his story, as he knows that Slade hates the Apaches. They accompany the boy up the canyon and are ambushed by Slade and a gang of men from Tucson. Jeffords is shot and badly wounded and Sonseeahray is shot and killed, but Cochise kills most of the men, including Slade. Cochise forbids Jeffords to retaliate, arguing that peace must be maintained. General Howard arrives with some of the townsfolk and informs Jeffords and Cochise that the men who survived the ambush and fled have been captured and will be executed for their crime. The townsfolk offer their condolences and apologize.
Jeffords rides off with the belief that the death of Sonseeahray ensured a lasting peace and that she will always be with him.
Producer Julian Blaustein recalled: "We had a terrible time locating an actor with the proper voice and stature to play Cochise. Before we found Chandler we were even considering Ezio Pinza".[3]
Jeff Chandler was cast in May 1949 on the basis of his performance in Sword in the Desert. He was working in several radio series at the time, Michael Shayne and Our Miss Brooks, which he left for several weeks.[4]
Although many Western films of the pre-World War II period portray American Indians as unwaveringly hostile to the mostly European-American settlers, others showed them in a more positive light. Broken Arrow is noteworthy as one of the first post-war Westerns to present a more balanced portrayal of Indians, helping to bring the era of the revisionist Western genre.[6]
Reception
Broken Arrow was screened for 450 civic leaders at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on July 13, 1950. The president of the Association on American Indian Affairs addressed the crowd to decry Hollywood's traditional portrayal of Indians and condemn the recent 14-year prison sentence given to four Nez Perce and Coeur d'Alene boys in Idaho for the theft of a sheep.[7][8]
In what appears an honorable endeavor to clear the public's mind of the traditional notion that the American Indian was an unprincipled and uncivilized brute, Twentieth Century-Fox has manufactured a richly colorful romantic film, "Broken Arrow," in which the Indians come off better—much better—on the whole, than do the whites. As a matter of fact, one might wonder ... whether it isn't the white man, not the Indian, who should be regarded as "good" only when he is dead. ... We wish we could tell you unreservedly that the thesis is eloquently conveyed and that this picture demonstrates with real conviction that the Indian has been cruelly maligned. But unfortunately the nobleness of purpose of Twentieth Century-Fox is more to be commended than the talent with which it has made this film. ... [A]pparently in his enthusiasm to treat the Indian with politeness and respect, Delmer Daves, the director, brought forth red men who act like denizens of the musical comedy stage. ... No, we cannot accept this picture as either an exciting or reasonable account of the attitudes and ways of American Indians. They merit justice, but not such patronage."[9]
Aleiss, Angela, Making the White Man's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies, London & CT: Praeger, 2005; ISBN0-275-98396-X
Karney, Robyn (editor), Chronicle of the Cinema; London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995; ISBN0-7894-0123-1
Lenihan, John H. Showdown: Confronting Modern America in the Western Film, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980; ISBN0-252-00769-7
O'Conner, John E. & Peter C. Rollins, eds. Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film [Paperback], The University Press of Kentucky, 2003; ISBN0813190770
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