Das letzte Gefecht

TCM played this last night. It's cheap and shallow Saturday matinée stuff as the other comments suggest. I noticed two things: the day-for-night shots look good but the director(s) rarely used closeups. Most of the shots are long or waist shots, or two shots.This was an early CinemaScope production and perhaps they were limited by the lenses they had (the lenses were not plentiful at this time, especially to non- Fox producers). "Sitting Bull" was the first independent production to be shot in CinemaScope. This was W. R. Frank's last feature film production; he was a Minneapolis, MN theatre owner. The world premiere was held August 19, 1954 in Sioux Falls, SD. What did the Sioux Falls cinema-goers think of this picture being shot in Mexico?! It opened October 7, 1954 at the State Theatre in Minneapolis and Paramount in St. Paul. Both of the cities' film critics, Will Jones and Bill Diehl, hated the film. Comment cards were handed out at both theatres. A trade magazine item in April 1953 said that Frank had set May 20 as the production's start date, but decided to put it off until July when CinemaScope equipment was available. As early as 1950 actors such as Victor Jory were announced as being signed for this production. Later, names such as Boris Karloff and Dennis Morgan were mentioned in the trade press.

The critic Dilys Powell once said there were no bad westerns; there were great westerns, there were good westerns and there were westerns and I suppose you could say Sidney Salkow's film "Sitting Bull" falls into the last category. As you might guess from the title it culminates in the Battle of Little Bighorn which, given that this is fundamentally a B-Movie western, is actually quite spectacularly handled while the movie itself falls into that small group of films to offer a sympathetic view of the plight of the Native American.

J. Carrol Naish is Sitting Bull and Dale Robertson, the cavalry man who's on the side of the Indians. Its view of history may be a little off the wall but it's a perfectly accessible 'Cowboys & Indians' picture which makes you wish it were better written and acted; the on-again-off-again love affair between Robertson and Mary Murphy is frankly embarrassing. Not a great western, then and maybe not even a good western but as Dilys might say, not a bad one either.

"Sitting Bull" as one might expect, takes place at the time of the infamous and oft filmed "Custer's Last Stand".

The story involves the efforts of the fictional Major Bob Parrish (Dale Robertson) and Sioux Chief Sitting Bull (J. Carroll Naish) to prevent a war between the Sioux nations and the U.S. Cavalry. On one side, Sitting Bull's chiefs led by Crazy Horse (Iron Eyes Cody) and Colonel Custer (Douglas Kennedy) on the other push their superiors into war.

The requisite love triangle involves Parrish, the General's daughter Kathy (Mary Murphy) and newspaperman Wentworth (william Hopper). Kathy turns away from Parrish when he is charged with insubordination and reduced in rank to Captain. She then becomes engaged to Wentworth.

Parrish meanwhile with the assistance of former black slave "Sam" (Joel Flueller)arranges a meeting between President U.S. Grant (John Hamilton) and Sitting Bull. However, before the meeting can take place several incidents occur and war breaks out culminating with Custer's last stand at the Little Big Horn.

J. Carroll Naish lends dignity to his portrayal of Sitting Bull. We see him as an intelligent caring and cautious leader who will stoop to war only as a last resort. In a move unusual for its time black actor Joel Flueller was cast in one of the leading roles in the film.

The battle scenes are spectacular and well staged by director Sidney Salkow. In spite of the contrived Hollywood ending, this western is a lot better than some would have you believe.

The white men spend more time fighting each other than the Indians until eventually they arrive at Little Big Horn in this rather static and talky western in which J. Carrol Naish brings gravitas to the title role and Douglas Kennedy's briefly-seen Custer isn't the usual flamboyant caricature.

"Sitting Bull" is a film that shocked me. For a biopic/western, it's actually much closer to fact than I would have suspected. It also is much more sympathetic towards the Sioux nation than many westerns....and is well worth your time.

The story revolves around an officer who has been demoted. Bob Parrish (Dale Robertson) is not your typical cavalry officer, as he thinks that the American government should respect and treat the natives much better than they do. As he put it, 'they just want to live and raise their families'. But folks like General Custer and the rest give him a lot of guff and they seem to follow the old axiom, 'the only good Indian is a dead Indian'. What's to become of him and his mission to work WITH the natives instead of AGAINST them?

It is ironic that not only did Iron Eyes Cody appear in the film as Crazy Horse, but he was the consultant to the production about native culture. Only later in life did folks learn that Cody (the most American Indian looking guy on the planet) was actually an Italian!! But you can't blame the film....at the time everyone thought Cody was exactly what and who he pretended to be! But he and the filmmakers STILL got so much right in this one...and the movie holds up far better than most from the genre*. Well worth seeing and an excellent picture in so many ways.

*For the worst possible depiction of this same story, try "They Died With Their Boots On". While the cast was incredibly impressive (with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland), the facts are pretty much tossed out the window and Custer is depicted as a great man...not the incompetent he actually was.