Search - White Feather on DVD

1877 HOLLYWOOD STYLE

Kay's Husband | Virginia, U.S.A. | 06/18/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

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This movie is excellent entertainment for its time and also for today, however, it is not excellent history. But what the movie attempts to show deserves some sympathetic historical consideration.



Robert Wagner mentions the date 1877 at movie's beginning, only a few months after the Custer fight of June, 1876, at the Little Big Horn. After that fight, the Lakota as well as Northern Cheyenne were later tracked and attacked by General Ranald Mackenzie's troops either to die in battle or suffer much in way of starvation and death during the winter of 1876. Were driven after the battle to accept charity from Crazy Horse's Oglala people to live through the winter of '76. The old, normal life of the Northern Cheyenne had ceased to exit.



We are to assume the spring of 1877, for that is when the Northern Cheyenne were compelled to sign a treaty which would take them south away from their traditional home to Oklahoma then known as Indian Territory. The Northern Cheyenne walked every mile, close to 1500 miles, from the Powder River country to their new home near Fort Reno at the Darlington Agency. The journey on foot had taken several months from spring to fall, 1877. From that fall, 1877, until following spring, 1878, they remained in Oklahoma, but found conditions there so impossible they were forced into a choice of facing death at Darlington or death on the trail back to Montana. They chose to return to the Powder River country. That subject too Hollywood also put on film in 1964 as CHEYENNE AUTUMN.



Many may not enjoy this film, taking exception to major or minor elements, but for the attempt made to offer some pictorial history of this 1877 turbulent time, the movie does deserve several stars. The acting is very good, the filming is also good, but the story it attempts to tell is even better. Whether Hollywood or viewers were aware, it was a brave venture, none-the-less even today. The Northern Cheyenne did finally receive some tribute for both their bravery and suffering.



Though I see glaring historical errors in this film, it is still one of the more intelligent films made in the 1950s on the Northern plains Lakota tribes. Many may not feel that way, but then many do not read the real history of those long ago times. And though the movie has its inaccuracies, in the main it is a story well told. The shadows of both Little Wolf (Little Coyote) and Dull Knife (Morning Star) under examination continue to stand tall, though both died pretty much forgotten even to their own people.



Semper Fi."