Soldier Blue

Last updated

Soldier Blue
Soldier Blue.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Ralph Nelson
Screenplay by John Gay
Based onArrow in the Sun
by Theodore V. Olsen
Produced by Gabriel Katzka
Harold Loeb
Starring Candice Bergen
Peter Strauss
Donald Pleasence
John Anderson
Dana Elcar
Cinematography Robert B. Hauser
Edited byAlex Beaton
Music by Roy Budd
Production
company
Katzka-Loeb
Distributed by Embassy Pictures
Release date
  • August 12, 1970 (1970-08-12) [1]
Running time
115 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.2 million (North American rentals) [2] [3]

Soldier Blue is a 1970 American revisionist Western film directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Candice Bergen, Peter Strauss, and Donald Pleasence. Adapted by John Gay from the novel Arrow in the Sun by T.V. Olsen, it is inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre in the Colorado Territory. Nelson and Gay intended to utilize the narrative surrounding the Sand Creek massacre as an allegory for the contemporary Vietnam War. [4]

Contents

Released in August 1970, the film drew attention for its frank depictions of violence, specifically its graphic final sequence. Some film scholars have cited Soldier Blue as a critique of America's "archetypal art form [the Western]," with other interpretations ranging from it being an anti-war picture to an exploitation film. [5]

Plot

In 1877 Colorado Territory, a young woman, Cresta Lee, and young Colorado Private Honus Gant are joined together by fate when they are the only two survivors after their group is massacred by the Cheyenne. Gant is devoted to his country and duty; Lee, who has lived with the Cheyenne for two years, is scornful of Gant (she refers to him as "Soldier Blue" derisively) and declares that in this conflict she sympathizes with them. The two must now try to make it to Fort Reunion, the army camp, where Cresta's fiancé, an army officer, waits for her. As they travel through the desert with very low supplies, hiding from the Native Americans, they are spotted by a group of Kiowa horsemen. Under pressure from Cresta, Honus fights and seriously wounds the group's chief when the chief challenges him. Honus finds himself unable to kill the disgraced Kiowa leader, whose own men stab him leaving Honus and Cresta alone. The ideological gulf between them is also revealed in their attitudes towards societal mores, with the almost-puritanical Honus disturbed by things Cresta barely notices.

The duo are pursued by a corrupt trader who sells guns to the Cheyenne, but whose latest shipment of weapons Honus has managed to destroy. An injured Honus finds himself in a cave where Cresta has left him to get help. She arrives at Fort Reunion, only to discover that her fiancé's cavalry unit plans to attack the peaceful Native American village of the Cheyenne the following day. She rides to the village in time to warn Spotted Wolf, the Cheyenne chief. The chief does not recognize the danger and, under a U.S. flag, rides out to extend a hand of friendship to the European American soldiers. The soldiers, however, obey the orders of their psychopathic commanding officer and open artillery fire on the village.

After a cavalry charge decimates the Native American men, the soldiers enter the village and begin to rape and kill the Cheyenne women. Honus attempts to halt the atrocities, to no avail, and he is later arrested for treason by his own comrades. Cresta attempts to lead the remaining women and children to safety, but her group is discovered and massacred, though Cresta herself survives and is arrested for treason by the soldiers. Honus is dragged away chained behind an army wagon while a despairing Cresta is left with the few Cheyenne survivors.

Cast

Production

The film provided the first motion picture account of the Sand Creek massacre, one of the most infamous incidents in the history of the American frontier, in which Colorado Territory militia under Colonel John M. Chivington massacred a defenseless village of Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Colorado Eastern Plains.

The account of the massacre is included as part of a longer fictionalized story about the escape of two white survivors from an earlier massacre of U.S. Cavalry troops by Cheyenne, and names of the actual historical characters were changed. Director Nelson stated that he was inspired to make the film based on the wars in Vietnam and Sơn Mỹ. [6]

Principal photography began on October 28, 1969, with exterior photography taking place in Mexico. [1] Arthur J. Ornitz was originally hired as the film's cinematographer, but was replaced by Robert B. Hauser several weeks into production. [1] According to Bergen, a large van full of prosthetics was brought in during the filming of the violent battle sequences, full of dummy body parts and animatronics. [7] Additionally, amputees from Mexico City were hired to serve as extras during the final massacre sequence. [7]

Release

Soldier Blue premiered in New York City on August 12, 1970, and opened in Los Angeles two days later on August 14, 1970. [1]

Box office

The film was the third-most popular film at the British box office in 1971. [8] It brought $1.2 million from the U.S./ Canada rentals. [2] The title song, written and performed by Buffy Sainte-Marie, was released as a single and became a top ten hit in the UK as well as other countries in Europe and Japan during the summer of 1971. [9]

Reception

Contemporaneous

Multiple film critics said Soldier Blue evoked the My Lai massacre, which had been disclosed to the American public the previous year. [10] In September 1970, Dotson Rader writing in The New York Times , remarked that Soldier Blue "must be numbered among the most significant, the most brutal and liberating, the most honest American films ever made." [6]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote of the film: "Soldier Blue is indeed savage, but it wears its cloak of "truth" self-consciously. It is supposed to be a pro-Indian movie, and at the end the camera tells us the story was true, more or less, and that the Army chief of staff himself called the massacre shown in the film one of the most shameful moments in American history." [11] He added: "So it was, and of course we're supposed to make the connection with My Lai and take Soldier Blue as an allegory for Vietnam. But that just won't do. The film is too mixed up to qualify as a serious allegory about anything." [11] The Time Out film guide called the film "a grimly embarrassing anti-racist Western about the U.S. Cavalry's notorious Sand Creek Indian massacre in 1864. In the interests of propaganda, one might just about stomach the way the massacre itself is turned into a gleefully exploitative gore-fest of blood and amputated limbs; but not when it's associated with a desert romance that's shot like an ad-man's wet dream, all soft focus and sweet nothings." [12]

Contemporary

Modern critics and scholars have alternately described Soldier Blue as a revisionist western [13] anti-American, [14] and as an exploitation film. [5] In 2004, the BBC named it "one of the most significant American films ever made." [15] British author and critic P.B. Hurst, who wrote the 2008 book The Most Savage Film: Soldier Blue, Cinematic Violence and the Horrors of War, said of the film: [16]

A good number of critics in 1970 believed that Soldier Blue had set a new mark in cinematic violence, as a result of its graphic scenes of Cheyenne women and children being slaughtered, and had thus lived up – or down – to its U.S. poster boast that it was "The Most Savage Film in History." A massive hit in Great Britain and much of the rest of the world, Soldier Blue was, in the words of its maverick director, Ralph Nelson, "not a popular success" in the United States. This probably had less to do with the picture's groundbreaking violence, and more to do with the fact that it was the U.S. Cavalry who were breaking new ground. For Nelson's portrayal of the boys in blue as blood crazed maniacs, who blow children's brains out and women, shattered for ever one of America's most enduring movie myths – that of the cavalry as good guys riding to the rescue – and rendered Soldier Blue one of the most radical films in the history of American cinema. The film's failure in its homeland might also have had something to do with the perception in some quarters – prompted by production company publicity material – that it was a deliberate Vietnam allegory.

Retrospective analysis has placed the film in a tradition of motion pictures of the early 1970s – such as Ulzana's Raid (1972) – which were used as "natural venues for remarking on the killing of women and children by American soldiers" in light of the political conflicts of the era. [17] However, the "visual excesses" of the film's most violent sequences have been similarly criticized as exploitative by modern critics as well. [18]

In a 2005 article on the film in Uncut , Kevin Maher deemed it "a bloody 1970 exploitation western ... [which] has a gore-count worthy of Cannibal Holocaust ." [5] TV Guide awarded the film one out of five stars, writing: "Soldier Blue suffers from Bergen's weak performance and Strauss is bland, but the parallel between the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and Vietnam's My Lai incident is disturbing and the film's depiction of Native American life is an explicit attempt to move past Hollywood stereotypes." [19]

Film scholar Christopher Frayling described Soldier Blue as a "much more angry film" than its contemporary Westerns, which "challenges the language of the traditional Western at the same time as its ideological bases." [20] Frayling also praised its cinematography and visual elements in his 2006 book Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone: "most critics succeeded in missing the really inventive sections of Soldier Blue, which involve Nelson's use of elaborate zooms, and of untraditional compositions, both of which subtly explore the relationship between the 'initiates' and the virgin land which surrounds them." [20]

Recalling the film, star Candice Bergen commented that it was "a movie whose heart, if nothing else, was in the right place." [7]

In culture

Artist Andrea Carlson's 2010 work "Soldier Blue" incorporates text and images from several cannibal films popular in the 1970s and 1980s. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spaghetti Western</span> Film genre

The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most of these Westerns were produced and directed by Italians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arapaho</span> Native American tribe

The Arapaho are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sand Creek massacre</span> 1864 killing of Cheyenne and Arapaho people by US troops during the American Indian Wars

The Sand Creek massacre was a massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the U.S. Army in the American Indian Wars that occurred on November 29, 1864, when a 675-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry under the command of U.S. Volunteers Colonel John Chivington attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 69 to over 600 Native American people. Chivington claimed 500 to 600 warriors were killed. However, most sources estimate around 150 people were killed, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. The location has been designated the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and is administered by the National Park Service. The massacre is considered part of a series of events known as the Colorado Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Chivington</span> 19th-century American pastor and soldier

John Milton Chivington was a Methodist pastor and Mason who served as a colonel in the United States Volunteers during the New Mexico Campaign of the American Civil War. He led a rear action against a Confederate supply train in the Battle of Glorieta Pass, and was then appointed a colonel of cavalry during the Colorado War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Kettle</span> Leader of the Southern Cheyenne

Black Kettle was a leader of the Southern Cheyenne during the American Indian Wars. Born to the Northern Só'taeo'o / Só'taétaneo'o band of the Northern Cheyenne in the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota, he later married into the Wotápio / Wutapai band of the Southern Cheyenne.

<i>Ulzanas Raid</i> 1972 film by Robert Aldrich

Ulzana's Raid is a 1972 American revisionist Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison and Joaquin Martinez. The film, which was filmed on location in Arizona, was directed by Robert Aldrich based on a script by Alan Sharp. It portrays a brutal raid by Chiricahua Apaches against European settlers in 1880s Arizona. The bleak and nihilistic tone of U.S. troops chasing an elusive merciless enemy has been seen as allegory to the United States participation in the Vietnam War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dog Soldiers</span> Military society of the Cheyenne nation

The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men are historically one of six Cheyenne military societies. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band that played a dominant role in Cheyenne resistance to the westward expansion of the United States in the area of present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, where the Cheyenne had settled in the early nineteenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of the Washita River</span> U.S. Cavalry attack on Plains Indian camp

The Battle of the Washita River occurred on November 27, 1868, when Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's 7th U.S. Cavalry attacked Black Kettle's Southern Cheyenne camp on the Washita River.

<i>Little Big Man</i> (film) 1970 American Western film by Arthur Penn

Little Big Man is a 1970 American revisionist Western film directed by Arthur Penn, adapted by Calder Willingham from Thomas Berger's 1964 novel of the same title. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Chief Dan George, Faye Dunaway, Martin Balsam, Jeff Corey and Richard Mulligan. The film follows the life of a white man who was raised by members of the Cheyenne nation during the 19th century, and then attempts to reintegrate with American pioneer society. Although broadly categorized as a Western, or an epic, the film encompasses several literary/film genres, including comedy, drama and adventure. It parodies typical tropes of the Western genre, contrasting the lives of white settlers and Native Americans throughout the progression of the boy's life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sioux Wars</span> Conflicts between the United States and indigenous Sioux tribes from 1854 to 1891

The Sioux Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century. The earliest conflict came in 1854 when a fight broke out at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, when Sioux warriors killed 31 American soldiers in the Grattan Massacre, and the final came in 1890 during the Ghost Dance War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powder River Expedition (1865)</span>

The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory and Dakota Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Arapaho village and established Fort Connor to protect gold miners on the Bozeman Trail, the expedition is considered a failure because it failed to defeat or intimidate the Indians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado War</span> 19th-century armed conflict of the American Indian Wars

The Colorado War was an Indian War fought in 1864 and 1865 between the Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, and allied Brulé and Oglala Sioux peoples versus the U.S. Army, Colorado militia, and white settlers in Colorado Territory and adjacent regions. The Kiowa and the Comanche played a minor role in actions that occurred in the southern part of the Territory along the Arkansas River. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux played the major role in actions that occurred north of the Arkansas River and along the South Platte River, the Great Platte River Road, and the eastern portion of the Overland Trail. The United States government and Colorado Territory authorities participated through the 1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment, often called the Colorado volunteers. The war was centered on the Colorado Eastern Plains, extending eastward into Kansas and Nebraska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment</span> Military unit

The 1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment was formed in November 1862 by Territorial Governor John Evans, composed mostly of members of the 1st Colorado Infantry Regiment and of C and D Companies of the 2nd Colorado Infantry Regiment. It was formed both to protect Colorado against incursions from the Confederate forces and to fight the Native Americans who already inhabited the area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Charge of the Light Brigade (poem)</span> 1854 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"The Charge of the Light Brigade" is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. He wrote the original version on 2 December 1854, and it was published on 9 December 1854 in The Examiner. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom at the time. The poem was subsequently revised and expanded for inclusion in Maud and Other Poems (1855).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Robinson breakout</span> Battle and massacre that occurred in Fort Robinson, Nebraska

The Fort Robinson breakout or Fort Robinson massacre was the attempted escape of Cheyenne captives from the U.S. army during the winter of 1878-1879 at Fort Robinson in northwestern Nebraska. In 1877, the Cheyenne had been forced to relocate from their homelands on the northern Great Plains south to the Darlington Agency on the Southern Cheyenne Reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). In September 1878, in what is called the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, 353 Northern Cheyenne fled north because of poor conditions on the reservation. In Nebraska, the U.S. Army captured 149 of the Cheyenne, including 46 warriors, and escorted them to Fort Robinson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Bent</span> Cheyenne-Anglo Confederate soldier

George Bent, also named Ho—my-ike in Cheyenne, was a Cheyenne-Anglo who became a Confederate soldier during the American Civil War and waged war against Americans as a Cheyenne warrior afterward. He was the mixed-race son of Owl Woman, daughter of White Thunder, a Cheyenne chief and keeper of the Medicine Arrows, and the American William Bent, founder of the trading post named Bent's Fort and a trading partnership with his brothers and Ceran St. Vrain. Bent was born near present-day La Junta, Colorado, and was reared among both his mother's people, his father and other European Americans at the fort, and other whites from the age of 10 while attending boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri. He identified as Cheyenne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Julesburg</span>

The Battle of Julesburg took place on January 7, 1865, near Julesburg, Colorado between 1,000 Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota Indians and about 60 soldiers of the U.S. army and 40 to 50 civilians. The Indians defeated the soldiers and over the next few weeks plundered ranches and stagecoach stations up and down the South Platte River valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Mud Springs</span>

The Battle of Mud Springs took place February 4–6, 1865, in Nebraska between the U.S. army and warriors of the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. It was part of a series of retaliations by the Native American alliance after the U.S. army committed the Sand Creek Massacre. The battle was inconclusive, although the Indians succeeded in capturing some Army horses and a herd of several hundred cattle. Mud Springs is located 8 mi northwest of Dalton, Nebraska, and is today a National Historic Site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Sedgwick</span> U.S. military post in Colorado, United States

Fort Sedgwick, also known as Post at Julesburg, Camp Rankin, and Fort Rankin was a U.S. military post from 1864 to 1871, in Sedgwick County, Colorado. There are two historical markers for the former post. The town was named for Fort Sedgwick, which was named after John Sedgwick, who was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Wicked</span> Civilian fort in Colorado, United States

Fort Wicked was a ranch and stage station on the Overland Trail from 1864 to 1868 in present-day Merino, Colorado. A historical marker commemorating the ranch is located at US 6 and CR-2.5. The ranch itself was located near a ford of the South Platte River, near where US-6 now crosses over the river. Fort Wicked was one of the few places along the trail to Denver that withstood an attack by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native Americans in the Colorado War of 1864. It was named Fort Wicked for the "bitter defence" made by Holon Godfrey, his family, and his employees.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Soldier Blue (1970)". American Film Institute Catalog. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Big Rental Films of 1970". Variety. January 6, 1971. p. 11.
  3. Donahue, Suzanne Mary (1987). American film distribution : the changing marketplace. UMI Research Press. p. 297. ISBN   9780835717762. Please note figures are for rentals in US and Canada
  4. Maddrey 2016, p. 160.
  5. 1 2 3 Hurst 2008, p. 2.
  6. 1 2 The New York Times Film Reviews 1970–1971. 1971. p. 218.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  7. 1 2 3 Maddrey 2016, p. 116.
  8. Waymark, Peter (December 30, 1971). "Richard Burton top draw in British cinemas". The Times. London.
  9. "Soldier Blue Video – Lyrics". Buffy Sainte-Marie (blog). August 7, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2012.
  10. Huebner 2008, p. 251.
  11. 1 2 Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1970). "Soldier Blue". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved March 28, 2018 via RogerEbert.com.Star full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg
  12. "Soldier Blue (1970)". Time Out. London. November 2011. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  13. Indick 2008, p. 48.
  14. Maddrey 2016, p. 125.
  15. Hurst 2008, p. 1.
  16. Hurst, P.B. "The Most Savage Film: Reliving Soldier Blue". Cinema Retro . Retrieved December 27, 2017.
  17. Huebner 2008, p. 250.
  18. Huebner 2008, p. 252.
  19. "Soldier Blue". TV Guide. Retrieved March 28, 2018.Star full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg
  20. 1 2 Frayling 2006, p. 283.
  21. "Andrea Carlson; Soldier Blue". National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved April 26, 2023.

Works cited