A Patch of Blue

A PATCH OF BLUE             B             
USA  (105 mi)  1965  ‘Scope  d:  Guy Green

Selina:  “I know everything I need to know about you. I love you.  I know you’re good, and kind.  I know you’re colored and I…”

Gordon:  “What’s that?”

Selina:  “…And I think you’re beautiful!”

Gordon:  “Beautiful?  Most people would say the opposite.”

Selina:  “Well that’s because they don’t know you.”

A variation on the Cinderella fairy tale, told Hollywood style in a wrenching racial melodrama about an 18-year old blind girl, Elizabeth Hartman as Selina D’Arcy, who’s been kept out of school and forced to do menial chores at home all day doing the cooking and cleaning for her tyrannical mother, Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters), before meeting a stranger in Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier), who happens to be black, though she doesn’t learn this until late into the picture.  Gordon befriends her and takes an interest in what’s happening in her life, which leads to a cataclysmic upheaval in her life once her mother finds out.  Literally locked inside her apartment with few opportunities to ever go outside, Selina leads a stifling existence, where her mother’s mental and physical abuse has no bounds, yet she won an Academy  Award for a playing a woman so monstrous that she belongs in the discussion for worst mothers ever depicted onscreen, (which may be reserved for Franziska Weisz in her vile portrayal in Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) in 2014), where her grotesque sadism and sheer lack of humanity overshadows any and all racist shortcomings.  As portrayed in Steve McQueen’s more recent 12 Years a Slave (2013) or Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), white slave owners are depicted as not just evil, but are exaggerated into such sadistic caricatures that it’s reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004).  While this is an extremely popular characterization in Hollywood movies, it’s highly questionable whether this over-exaggeration may do more harm than good, resorting to a sado-masochistic indulgence to such an extreme degree that ordinary racists are paragons of virtue by comparison, so it really misses the point.  Coming a year after the legislative passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it’s hard to believe someone who so completely embodies racial bigotry would win an Academy Award for her performance, even though this film lays it on a bit thick in drawing the moral lines between good and evil, where Rose-Ann literally has no redeeming qualities whatsoever as a human being.  Winters herself revealed in interviews afterwards that it was difficult being this abhorrent, “I’ve always found something to like in the characters I’ve played, but not this time.  I really hate this woman.”  Adapted from the 1961 novel Be Ready with Bells and Drums by Australian writer Elizabeth Kata, the film alters the tone of the novel where the young girl shares her mother’s prejudices, going into a state of shock once she learns the truth about her newly discovered friend, handing him over to a mob of racist vigilantes.  That doesn’t happen here where the subject of race is cleverly downplayed, where instead it’s a film about a sheltered and abused blind girl’s personal liberation and freedom, optimistically breaking the shackles of the past and walking into a new era. 

Just two years earlier Poitier became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for his performance in LILIES OF THE FIELD (1963), which is interesting considering one of the central scenes of the film is the spirited rendition of the gospel song “Amen” Lilies of the Field - Amen - YouTube (3:06), where the musical arrangement and Poitier’s voice were supplied by Jester Hairston, as Poitier was notoriously tone deaf.  Certainly one of the most exceptional performances of his career went unrecognized by the Academy in A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961), featuring an all-star black cast, where his youthful anger couldn’t have more perfectly fit the raging sentiment of the times.  Poitier went on to play the parts of noble and dignified black men not only in this film, but also TO SIR WITH LOVE (1967), IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967), GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967), and FOR LOVE OF IVY (1968), where as much as any other celebrity, white America came of age in the 1960’s identifying with the decency of Poitier as a black man, making him a safe choice with movie audiences that embraced him, helping raise awareness for more equal treatment of all races.  While this is an extremely conventional film, what’s interesting is how it balances the ordinary moments of Selina and Gordon spending time together and then how traumatizing it feels with her own mother, who treats her with little more than outright contempt.  There’s an interesting use of flashback and dream sequences, which were much more commonly used internationally in the 60’s than they are today, allowing directors greater freedom in exploring the psychological state of mind of the characters, where in this film it also provides a window into Selina’s brutal past, where her childhood was anything but innocent.  Gordon immediately picks up on this, where this perfectly normal girl, except that she’s blind, has endured and somehow prevailed under the most tragic circumstances.  In many ways it resembles the fragility of The Glass Menagerie, where Selena has been kept inside a cloistered existence all her life, completely unaware of the world outside that represents her yearning for freedom.  We eventually learn what a house of horrors she did come from, as her blindness was actually caused by her mother (discovered in bed with another man) who in a state of rage threw a bottle of hydrogen peroxide at her father when she was only five, where he ducked out of the way but it landed on her face, causing burned scars around her eyes and immediate blindness.  The title of the film references one of her earliest memories, where all she remembers is seeing a patch of blue sky out the window. 

The other surprisingly good aspect of the film is the inventive musical score by Jerry Goldsmith, and while it overemphasizes moments of sentimentality with heartwarming string music, very much a period of its time, it also takes a novel approach for more ordinary moments, creating a slightly jazz-tinged scenario with an interesting use of percussion, where the off-kilter music actually helps the audience see the scene in a uniquely different way.  The weight of the world seems to rest on Selina’s shoulders, having to endure a daily barrage of insults from her mother, who picks on her constantly, literally blaming Selina for all the troubles in her life, particularly her impoverished economic status, suggesting her own life would be so much better without the added burden.  To complicate the woes, Rose-Ann’s drunken father lives there as well, known as Ole Pa (Wallace Ford), and while he’s kinder to Selina than her berating mother who actually slaps her around, he’s pretty much useless, as he never really interferes.  He is willing to drop her off in the park one day, much to Selina’s delight, as the idea of spending an entire day outdoors is like a dream to her, having no problem whatsoever with having to wait until early evening for him to pick her up on his way home after work.  While sitting under a giant tree, she happens to meet Gordon as he lives nearby, where they quickly become good friends.  Astounded that she’s never had any education, and has been deprived of all the things that make life interesting, he helps her manage her away across a busy street intersection and introduces her to the food from a nearby cafeteria, while also teaching her how to use a public telephone and rest room.  Anchored to the same spot all day, she’s not hard to find, where he has a hunch she might still be out there during a heavy downpour of rain, helping her to the nearest protective cover.  In their meetings, she expresses the awe of discovering new things, like pineapple juice or different flavors of ice cream, while also confessing some of the most disturbing incidents that have happened under her mother’s care, which in her eyes is an ordinary occurrence.  There is an unworldly moment that certainly takes us by surprise when Gordon sings to her (in French no less!!) the words to a French children’s song that plays on a music box, A Patch of Blue: "Il pleut, il pleut, bergère." (49 seconds), but other than that, there’s nothing particularly dramatic about their scenes together, which is the beauty of the film, although the interracial eight-second kiss between them was cut for Southern audiences.  Well-acted and always intriguing, even Gordon’s brother Mark, Ivan Dixon, so superlative in Michael Roemer’s Nothing But a Man (1964) a year earlier, questions his budding friendship with a blind white girl, realizing it could potentially cause a scandal, which it does once Rose-Ann accidentally sees them together on the street, bringing the wrath of Hell down upon her, scolding her for associating with a “nigger.”  Untouched by the sordid reality surrounding her life, Selina is pure of heart, where the music box becomes her most prized possession, as it symbolizes her friendship and developing love for another human being, where it ends on an ambiguous note, as the doors to her future swing open, but the social services available for the blind, mentally ill or disabled in the mid 60’s were hardly a picnic, many discarded for simply being too much trouble for their families, as evidenced in the hackneyed recut version of an early John Cassavetes film A Child Is Waiting (1963), which actually takes place on the premises of a California State Hospital for the Handicapped.  Clearly, however, as evidenced by the idealism expressed in both films, the seeds are planted for a more humane society.  If the 60’s was anything, it was an era of optimism and hope for a better future, despite the lingering Vietnam War and existing racial and economic disparities.

Note

For her performance, Elizabeth Hartman, who was 22 years old at the time, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, but suffered from lifelong depression, which worsened following her divorce in 1984, giving up acting and instead moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she worked at a museum while receiving treatment at an outpatient clinic.  On June 10, 1987, at the age of 43, Hartman committed suicide by jumping from the window of her fifth floor apartment. 

The Night of the Hunter

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER     A            

USA  (93 mi)  1955  d:  Charles Laughton

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.

—Matthew 7:15-16

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

—Matthew 7:18, 20, The Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum’s) ominous introduction

But there are things you hate, Lord, perfume-smellin' things, lacy things, things with curly hair.

—The Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum)

This is another film that when released in 1955, it was maligned as hopelessly out of synch with American postwar sensibilities and was yet another film that failed at the box office, which so disappointed the director he never made another film, yet remains one of the greatest American films ever made.  The film is based on the novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee, who had a severe drinking problem and died the year the film was released, so the director finished the script, though it largely coincides with Agee’s first draft.  Unlike the uproar with the publishing of Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry (1927), which took satirical swipes at attitudes within evangelical circles in the 1920’s, denounced from pulpits across the country, where the city of Boston banned the book, this novel was based on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Using a hybrid of different styles, the film is something of an oddity, using a German Expressionist lighting design, gorgeously filmed by Stanley Cortez, honored for his deep focus cinematography in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942), but also the manner of a Brothers Grimm children’s story, using elaborate artificialized visual fantasy with a seething undercurrent of social malaise hovering underneath.  Despite the fairy tale element, this veers into film noir territory, expressing cynical attitudes and deeply repressed sexual motivations, where God (who is spoken to directly) is literally seen as a tolerant accomplice to murder:  “Not that you mind the killings! There's plenty of killings in your book, Lord.”  Easily the most outstanding aspect is a brilliantly evil performance by Robert Mitchum as the Reverend Harry Powell (who as it turns out, directed the children scenes, as Laughton had little affection for them), a psychopathic preacher (needing no make-up) that kills unsuspecting widows for their money, who spends the film on a relentless search for hidden money that he knows is in the hands of two children, ten-year old John (Billy Chapin) and his younger sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce).   

So while this is a murder mystery about a serial killer on the loose, it’s simultaneously a nightmarish child horror story seen through the eyes of the children, given a strange Biblical context, including repeating refrains from a familiar hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” first heard here The Night of the Hunter: The Showalter Hymn, when it is first YouTube (1:26).  Mitchum’s baritone voice was never used to better effect, and while the hymn is a song of reassurance and faith, here it is continually used to announce his menacing presence.  Set in the rural Bible belt during the Depression, Ben Harper (Peter Graves) robs a bank stealing $10,000, quickly giving it to his two young children to hide before he is arrested and hauled off to jail, but not before forcing them both to swear not to tell anyone, not even their mother.  Sharing the same prison cell, the Preacher (arrested on car theft) overhears him talk in his sleep about hidden money, which may as well be the voice of God speaking.  After Harper is executed, the Preacher, with his fire and brimstone drawl, dressed in a cleric’s black cloth and a wide brim puritan hat, pays a visit to the grieving widow Willa, Shelley Winters, who is surrounded by her overly pious community, especially Mrs. Spoon (Evelyn Varden), who keeps her nose in everybody’s business.  While the entire community is smitten with the young Preacher, it’s Mrs. Spoon (an anonymous presence of Evil hidden within the flock of Christian sheep, who can later be seen leading a lynch mob against him!) who gushes over his presence and all but throws Wilma at his feet in marriage, though John keeps a healthy distance and has his suspicions, as all this Preacher keeps asking him about is the money.  No one believes John, however, as the Preacher has everyone convinced the money was thrown in a river, especially his mother, though he keeps tightening the screws on John, especially when he terrorizes him with the thought of becoming his new father through marriage, a man with the words “love” and hate” tattooed on the knuckles of each hand, seen here:  Love - Hate: Night of the Hunter - YouTube (57 seconds), turned into a freakish circus performance told in the form of a Biblical parable. 

Wilma’s wedding night is a thing for the ages, as Powell is not interested in sex, only wallowing in all the as yet undiscovered money, where the naively eager expectant bride is belittled and humiliated to discover the puritanical wrath of God coming down upon her in the form of her new tyrannical husband who lays down the law that sex is only for procreation.  As if under the spell of his personal magnetism, we see her next sweating profusely, framed by burning torches at a revival meeting, confessing her wedding night sinful expectations as a means to arouse the crowd into a virtuous frenzy. But when she overhears the Preacher’s sinister threats to her son, this leads to a maniacally crazed ritual where her soft narration of receiving God’s salvation results in a baptism of the barbaric and the grotesque The Night Of The Hunter - Wife Killer  YouTube (2:11), leaving her at the bottom of the river.  With no one left to protect them, the children are finally at the Preacher’s mercy.  Realizing his murderous intentions, they slip away into the night and escape in a raft down the river, producing some of the most extraordinary images of the film, abandoning all pretense at realism and embracing the children’s point of view, almost like turning the pages of a child’s picture book.  The artificiality of these river sequences is dazzling, often resembling a Huckleberry Finn wonderland, where Mitchum’s foreboding presence follows them everywhere, seen on the distant horizon riding a horse.  But the real surprise is yet to come, where Laughton picks silent film goddess Lillian Gish from the D.W. Griffith era to sweep the kids up in her arms and take them into her protective custody, as she has several other abandoned young children as well, which changes the entire tone of the film.  Rooted in a strong faith in The Bible, often telling them stories, Gish as the counter opposite to Mitchum couldn’t be more intriguing, a hard-nosed woman who practices tough love.  When the inevitable occurs and the Preacher comes for the children, she knows a fraud when she sees one, leading to a delicious Good/Evil co-mingling refrain of the hymn, where Gish, rifle in hand, joins along, but includes what the Preacher leaves out, the lyric reference to “Jesus” Robert Mitchum - The Night of the Hunter - "Leaning" - YouTube  (2:12).  All set in a weird, exquisitely beautiful and eerie atmosphere that feels timeless, not at all reminiscent of the 50’s, where the subversive nature of the film recalls Douglas Sirk, this is a truly exquisite allegory of innocence, evil, and hypocrisy, selected to the Library of Congress National Film Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” certainly influencing later directors like Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, David Lynch, and the Coen Brothers.

Winchester '73

WINCHESTER ’73              A-                   

USA  (92 mi)  1950  d:  Anthony Mann 

From films like T-MEN (1947) and RAW DEAL (1948), Anthony Mann brought his textbook film noir stylization to the American western, bringing along Frank Capra’s American everyman Jimmy Stewart to boot, the first of five westerns they would make together, giving him a piece of the take in lieu of a salary that he could not afford to pay, turning the lovable Stewart into a man with a tortured past, obsessed, angry and bitter at having spent the last few years of his life chasing after his nemesis, the man who shot his father in the back.  Along with a more hard-edged, psychological view, Mann also preferred to shoot on location, which adds an element of realism and authenticity to the look of the film, while still carrying over insulting American stereotypes about Indians, where none other than Rock Hudson makes an early appearance as an Indian chief, uttering that stupifying “Injun” lingo to add insult to injury, not to mention that exact same portrayal of Indians in battle that John Ford initiated in STAGECOACH (1939), sending wave after wave of Indians on horseback senselessly to meet their deaths while few if any whites get shot, actions that by any standards would be considered sheer idiocy.  Nonetheless, this film helped bring about a new wave of westerns that once again took another stab at re-inventing the West, this time at least making an attempt at being more truthful.  

A unique twist in this film is introducing the actual weapon, a Winchester 1873 repeating rifle, that the opening title credits indicate “won the West,” as Indians were never able to match weapons with a repeating rifle that did not need to be reloaded after a single shot, their ultimate undoing, and then turning one such rifle into a character in the film, as the story seems to follow whoever’s carrying the gun.  Set on the 4th of July in Dodge City, Kansas in 1876, Marshal Wyatt Earp (Will Geer) holds a shooting contest where the winner is awarded a rare "One of One Thousand" edition of the rifle, a valued weapon that draws together Stewart as Lin McAdams, along with his loyal sidekick High Spade Frankie Wilson, the always low key Millard Mitchell, and the volatile Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally), the man McAdams has been trailing.  When they spot each other, their reaction says it all.  But they can’t kill each other, as the law disarms everyone entering town in order to keep the peace, so they go through the motions of simply hating one another.  The shooting contest is interesting, as it goes into what’s ironically called sudden death overtime to determine the winner, McAdams—was there ever a doubt?  But within minutes, Brown and his gang have bushwacked McAdams and stolen his gun.  A pursuit follows, where the gun is at the heart of plenty of action, which takes them to a legendary card game between Brown and an Indian trader, John McIntire, full of swagger and especially creepy at outsmarting others, a gun deal gone wrong between the trader and Young Bull (Hudson), an eventful buggy ride between saloon girl Lola Manners, one of Shelley Winters best roles, sensuous and tough at the same time, never seen with a speck of dirt on her, her hair never out of place, seen earlier being unsolicitously thrown out of town by the Marshal in order to give the town an appearance of being clean and orderly for the festivities, and her fiancé (Charles Drake) just as they are attacked by Indians.  This buggy chase is memorable when the guy confoundingly halts the buggy and bolts away on a horse leaving Winters to fend for herself, a stupifyingly cowardly act, only to discover a small group of Cavalry around the bend, so he returns and brings her to temporary shelter, though as they soon discover, they are surrounded by Indians.   

One clever sound device is listening to the singing of the Indians, who make eerie, highly distinctive animal calls in the night, while also getting the sound of the rifles right.  McAdams and his partner join this little party as well, telling war stories about the Civil War, where incredulously, McAdams is not only aware of the Custer defeat while riding out on the range, which happened in late June of the same year, but he’s also well informed on the Indian’s military strategy on how to attack repeating rifles, which one would have to conclude would be impossible since there were no witnesses.  Again, this is typical of American mythmaking in westerns, which continues through John Wayne’s portrayal in John Ford’s legendary THE SEARCHERS (1956), considered by many to be the best western ever made, where the lead whites (Wayne and Stewart) are not only the most skilled marksmen, but they’re also the wisest military tacticians on the planet, offering a mythologically superior view of whites contrasted against Indians who can’t hit the broad side of a barn.  This exact same scenario has played out in dime store novels, comic books, newspapers, books, as well as movies, always the same, where Indians are just plain dumb, where westerns established the seeds of historic racism that may never be rectified.  Since this is one of the iconic westerns, and seen as a turning point towards more realism, this is painfully hard to swallow.  Nonetheless, the whites are attacked at first light (perpetuating another myth that Indians never attack at night) and wave after wave of Indians are slaughtered before our eyes, including Young Bull and his infamous rifle.  Discovered on the battlefield, the rifle is ironically turned over to Drake for his courage under fire, but he soon loses it as well. 

Enter Waco Johnny Dean, Dan Duryea as a preening lunatic playing his part in the physically exaggerated style of Brando, where his theatricality seems amusing even to Lola whom he abducts and abhors everything that he stands for, but she’s caught by his unorthodox, near caricature of a psychotic outlaw.  He joins up with Dutch Henry Brown, as outlaws always seem to do, and the rest is history.  McAdams stands down Waco Johnny in a manic scene of pure madness, where Stewart had never been seen before savagely fuming with such venom, before he and Brown hightail it out of town for the inevitable final showdown.  We soon discover in a Cain and Abel story that Brown is the bad seed brother to McAdams, whose been tracking him down ever since he shot their father in the back.  They end up in a shootout just between the two of them in a rocky canyon with bullets flying off the rocks, a delirious gunfight that is all about family honor and personal vengeance.  In the end, despite a nicely crafted edginess to a movie that delivers the goods with plenty of action, taut editing, crisp dialogue, some interesting characterizations, and exquisite location photography by cinematographer William Daniels, especially the silhouettes on horseback riding at the top of the hills, copied by none other than Ingmar Bergman for the finale to THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957), the resolution comes all too quickly as the moral lines are drawn hard and fast in this movie.

Postscript:
Largely a response to the extensive comments left below by Andrea Ostrov Letania who has her own website here:  ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA

I'm afraid this response may not do justice to your stated concerns, as differing views may be just that, but it's an attempt to clarify possible misconceptions.  Racial depictions are prevalent in Westerns, along with societal inequities and historical injustices, so they need to be evaluated along with the film.

“John Ford initiated in STAGECOACH (1939), sending wave after wave of Indians on horseback senselessly to meet their deaths while few if any whites get shot, actions that by any standards would be considered sheer idiocy.”

To clarify, the idiocy isn't what happened, that Indians (or Chinese Boxers in one of your examples) were shot down in droves, but the way this was portrayed onscreen, where the whites not only shoot the Indians, but also their horses out from under them - - all in a single shot.  This is utter lunacy, yet it is the key to understanding John Ford's mythical creation of a continually escalating visceral thrill onscreen, where the camera is placed low to the ground looking up at the Indian on the horse as they both die, falling simultaneously to the ground, all from a single bullet.  This happens repeatedly, as the fast-paced movement actually creates tension and drives the action.  Why few critics have questioned this outrageously racist depiction is beyond me, as whites are always depicted as not only militarily, but morally and intellectually superior, as if this is a known and undisputed fact, continually portraying Indians as savages and never as the culturally developed people that they were, who did not ravage and destroy the earth, understanding they were dependent upon it to survive.  These images degrade the viewer's understanding and appreciation for Indians and their place in American history, as they were more often the victim of genocide and untold atrocities by the U.S. Cavalry and Defense Department that attempted to wipe them off the face of the earth in order to make way for the white settlers.  It is this fictitious and mythical view of supposed white superiority, as projected in the movies, that continues to plague this nation, reflected by the equally hostile and racist attitudes of many misinformed American soldiers when they are sent to foreign lands.    

I'm not suggesting the Indians (or the Boxers) were stupid, only the invented version of Indians as savages as created by whites in movies, which shows no understanding whatsoever of Indians or Indian culture, something altogether missing in these films.  My point here is to clarify how Mann at least attempted to add a look of realism, including psychological depth and complexity to the Western, but continued to project the same racist "Indian as savages" viewpoint depicted by Ford.  Both added to the common misconceptions, yet both are revered for their supposed authenticity and historic attention to detail in their depiction of the West.  Someone needs to point out how racist and degrading their supposed portrait of authenticity really is.  They allowed white characters to be psychologically complex, but never Indians.

When looking at John Ford, he is a man whose cinematic visualizations are renowned, but his hatchet job of American history is equally legendary, as he insists on perpetrating the same racist myths about Indians that have been in effect for the past 100 years, which makes his historic vision as a filmmaker no better than the dime store novelist that originated these misconceptions.  Ford has always portrayed Indians in the least desirable light, showing them to be less than human, vicious savages, terrible shots, poor military strategists, and little more than pathetic wretches of humanity, so little sympathy is ever shown when a gazillion Indians are killed onscreen, such as in STAGECOACH (1939). 

Compare that to the elevated sympathy offered to two white women escorted by a cavalry troop through hostile Indian territory in SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (1949), an overreaching drama that opens in 1876 just as news is spreading about the defeat of General Custer at the hands of the Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapahoe, sending waves of anxiety and fear throughout the West, where a newsreel style narrator misinforms the audience straightaway, probably exactly as the newspapers speculated in that era, believing various Indian tribes were gathering together in great numbers to purge the West of white settlers.  In reality, Indians were gathering in record numbers to defend themselves against the inevitable advance of the whites into their territory.  After the Custer debacle, however, rather than remain a fighting force of multiple tribes united in opposition, as is suggested here, they split back up into smaller tribes, each going their own separate way, as they had always lived, reflective of their nomadic lifestyle of living off the land.  But that’s not the way the movies tell the story, instead projecting a view of the white settlers as victims of random and indiscriminate Indian violence, overlooking the genocide initiated against Indians by the U.S. cavalry throughout the West, ordered to militarily defeat one tribe after another, rounding up all free Indians in a form of ethnic cleansing, eventually forcing them into submission, legally requiring that they live away from their traditional hunting grounds, forcing them to live in isolation on desolate reservations, subject to rampant disease and the rotted food of government rations where more than half died within the first few years.  Ford conveniently leaves out all references to the true story of “American” history and instead recounts the same mythological racist lore that turns Indians into savages while the whites are noble heroes. 

While you may perceive Indians as clever in THE SEARCHERS (1956), this is a film about a racist and bitterly hateful man, perhaps the most racist film ever made, where Wayne's character is the ultimate Indian hater who rides for years harboring the racist view that whites raised by Indians are better off dead, as his captive niece has been irredeemably "soiled" by the experience, a view he reluctantly revises when he later rescues the daughter of the one woman he loves.  But this view recurs in Barbara Stanwyck's role in yet another Western portrayal, TROOPER HOOK (1957), where she is so scorned by the townsfolk just for having been an Indian's woman, her fall from grace is so severe that she is forced to live outside any society, white or Indian, much like Wayne at the end of THE SEARCHERS.  Wayne would also rather kill buffalo and leave it to rot on the plains than allow Indians to have food to eat, while the director Ford includes a despicable scene, also Aldrich in ULZANA'S RAID (1972), where whites raised by Indians are depicted as having been raped into insanity.  With Wayne typically the hero that audiences always root for, they are NOT apt to question this horrendous depiction of Indians and the generational harm these images cause both in planting the seed of ignorance in the brain and then having to re-learn how to reject such negative stereotypes, not when there is near unanimous praise for the film and the filmmaker. 

There is no question that in any John Ford/John Wayne movie, but in particular STAGECOACH (1939), SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (1949), and THE SEARCHERS (1956), together they forged a tough guy persona as the good guy, a lone man who harbors private secrets from a life filled with experience, adding a touch of intrigue and mystery, not to mention power to his character, personifying the freedom that is associated with the West.  In each, Wayne is viewed as the hero and will inevitably be the most skilled practitioner with a gun or rifle, but also in devising strategy whenever he and/or his men get caught in a tight situation.  It's also safe to say that James Stewart was known for his likeability which continued throughout his career, becoming one of the most beloved figures in American cinema, and that Mann used this trait against type in several of his Westerns, starting with this one. 

Indian strategy is at least mentioned in WINCHESTER '73, but the Jimmy Stewart character is already, in just a matter of weeks, well informed on the Indian military strategy in defeating Custer, displaying a kind of superhuman intelligence.  Again, what's racist is the demeaning and racially restricted view that only whites have a capacity for intelligence, as Indians are never depicted as having knowledge and skill, or powers of analysis, or exhibit a sense of humor or a concern for others, or any capability for being human. These qualities, in both Ford and Mann films, are only allowed for whites, just like a white-only neighborhood, or a drinking fountain, or a rest room.   

I'm not suggesting all Westerns need to be revisionist, this was the 50's after all, a time when Americans found Communists lurking under every rock, and call me an anti-racist if you will (I've been called worse!), but I will call them out on their misrepresented portrayal of Indians, as enough is enough, and Westerns are among the worst offenders of a culture plagued by race and culture hatred, so it's about time someone sought to eradicate some of the harm done by these damaging and misconceived historical perceptions which only cloud and distort reality, further leading to an ill-informed populace.