Soldier Blue

Soldier Blue

StudioCanal DVD cover
Directed by Ralph Nelson
Produced by Gabriel Katzka
Harold Loeb
Written by Theodore V. Olsen (novel Arrow in the Sun)
John Gay (screenplay)
Starring Candice Bergen
Peter Strauss
Donald Pleasence
Music by Roy Budd
Cinematography Robert B. Hauser
Distributed by Avco Embassy Pictures
Release dates
 August 12, 1970 (New York City)
Running time
 112 min
Language English

Soldier Blue is a 1970 American Revisionist Western movie directed by Ralph Nelson and inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre in the Colorado Territory. The screenplay was written by John Gay based on the novel Arrow in the Sun by Theodore V. Olsen (republished as Soldier Blue after the movie was released). It starred Candice Bergen, Peter Strauss and Donald Pleasence.

Plot

A young woman, Cresta Lee (Bergen), and young U.S. private Honus Gant (Strauss) 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, declares that in this conflict she sympathizes more with them. The two must now try to make it to Fort Reunion, the army base camp, where Cresta's fiance, an army officer, waits for her. As they travel through the desert with very low supplies, hiding from the Indians, they are spotted by a group of Kiowa horsemen. Under pressure from Cresta, Honus fights and seriously wounds the group's chief. Honus finds himself unable to kill the chief, and the chief's own men stab him for his defeat and leave Honus and Cresta alone.

Eventually, after being shot at by a white trader (played by Donald Pleasence) who had supplied guns to the Cheyenne, Honus finds himself in a cave where Cresta has left him to get help. She arrives at Fort Reunion, only to discover that her fiance's cavalry plans to attack the peaceful Indian village of the Cheyenne the following day. She runs away on a horse and reaches the village in time to warn Spotted Wolf, the Cheyenne chief. The chief refuses to indulge in warfare and rides out to extend a hand of friendship to the American soldiers using the U.S. flag. The soldiers, however, obey the orders of their commanding officer to open fire at the village. After a cavalry charge decimates the Indian men, the soldiers enter the village and begin to rape and kill the female survivors as Honus attempts to disrupt the massacre. Cresta attempts to lead the remaining women and children to safety, but her group is discovered and massacred while Cresta herself is spared. After the battle, Honus is led away in shackles and Cresta departs with the remaining survivors.

Cast

Production

The movie 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.

Reception

The film was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1971.[1] 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.[3]

In September 1970, Dotson Rader of The New York Times, wrote that Soldier Blue "must be numbered among the most significant, the most brutal and liberating, the most honest American films ever made."[4]

Released during the Vietnam War, shortly after public disclosure of the My Lai massacre, the film was controversial at the time not only for its subject matter, but also for its graphic depictions of violence. Nelson, who also appeared in the movie in a minor role, pushed the depiction of the violence to explicit levels, showing nudity during rape scenes, as well as realistic close-up shots of bullets ripping into flesh. British author and critic P.B. Hurst wrote:[4]

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 behead 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.

However, Paul Mavis, reviewing the 2006 Lionsgate disc release of Soldier Blue for DVD Talk, wrote, "[W]ith no attempt to fairly intellectualize the proceedings, Soldier Blue winds up only celebrating the barbarities it so lovingly depicts. As the posters accurately insinuate (no doubt at the insistence of shlock-meister producer Levine), Soldier Blue is essentially nothing more than a snuff film with a conscience...and a particularly suspect conscience at that."[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Waymark, Peter (December 30, 1971). "Richard Burton top draw in British cinemas". The Times (London).
  2. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1970", Variety, 6 January 1971 p 11
  3. ↑ "Soldier Blue Video – Lyrics". Buffy Sainte-Marie (blog). August 7, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2012.
  4. 1 2 Hurst, P.B., "The Most Savage Film: Reliving Soldier Blue", Cinema Retro, retrieved June 19, 2011
  5. ↑ Paul Mavis' review at DVD Talk
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