Run of the Arrow

Itself influenced by "the most dangerous game" (Cooper/Schoedsack,1932) "run for the arrow" inspired in part both Cornell Wilde 's overlooked "naked prey" (1966) and Gibson's overrated "Apocalypto" .All these films ,including Fuller's display a lot of sadism.

A confederate ,after a war he just lost ,sick and tired of his compatriots, wants to live among the Indians.Is it crazier that the journalist who gets admitted to an insane asylum to unmask a murderer? ("shock corridor")or the GI who after the war wants to marry a German and unmask the "werevolves" these youngsters who want to carry on with Hitler's "work"?("Verboten" )or the prostitute in search of respectability who wants to help disabled children and believes that songs can cure them?("naked kiss")

Sam Fuller's westerns are something different ;"Forty guns" and "run of the arrow" cannot be compared to the classics of the era (Ford,Mann,Daves ,etc)just as "shock corridor" is a thriller of its own kind or as "pick up on South street " is a spy thriller with no connection with those of Hitchcock and Lang.The hero portrayed by Rod Steiger thinks he has found a place and a new home in a new people ;but when war breaks out between his former compatriots and the Indians ,he does not know where he stands anymore .The frontier between the two worlds is frail .You can say the same for most of Fuller's movies

No one ever accused Sam Fuller of being a run-of-the-mill Hollywood dream merchant. Run of the Arrow is fairly typical of the noted director-writer's work, applying his thinking man's approach to a well-established genre; in this case, the western. Touching on the moral conflicts of the Civil War as well as the uneasy truce between the white man and the Native American, the movie centers on a disillusioned Confederate (Rod Steiger)trying to find his place in a world in which he has cast himself as an outsider.

Fuller handles the visuals and the action sequences with as much confidence as the more intimate sequences of Steiger trying to immerse himself into the culture of the Sioux after what he feels is the humiliating defeat of the Confederate forces to the Union. While he lacks is the poetic sweep of a John Ford, Fuller is refreshingly unsentimental and takes pains to establish the subtlety of the characters and their conflicts.

Still, it is by no means a perfect movie, undermined by the dreadful miscasting of Rod Steiger in the starring role. Although a highly skilled actor who has often excelled at portraying multi-dimensional, morally ambiguous characters, Steiger seems out-of-place as a Confederate renegade and his Irish brogue only calls attention to his uneasiness. Fuller barely shows any interest in fleshing out the relationship between Steiger and the Indian squaw he marries, casting a nondescript and unappealing actress for the love interest. But Brian Keith and Ralph Meeker are excellent as the Union officers, one kindly, the other oozing villainy from every pore.

The movie is a natural for fans of adult, upper-scale westerns (a la The Gunfighter, Shane, etc.) while the more action-oriented buffs won't feel entirely left out either.

Run of the Arrow is written and directed by Sam Fuller. It stars Rod Steiger, Sara Montiel, Brian Keith, Ralph Meeker, Jay C. Flippen and Charles Bronson. Music is scored by Victor Young and Technicolor cinematography is by Joseph Biroc.

As the American Civil War closes, Confederate Pvt. O'Meara (Steiger) finds he just can't bring himself to be part of the United States. With his head full of memories about what the Yankees put his kind through, and a heart full of bile, he decides to go West and live native. Here he encounters the Sioux and his life takes on a new meaning.....

Run of the Arrow, and director Sam Fuller in general, has grown a sterling reputation over the decades. Where Fuller's rep as the American Primitive auteur is well deserved, Run of the Arrow's is not. It seems that the themes at work, and they are strong and potent, have made many forget the glaring flaws in the production.

Churning away in the screenplay are themes of nationalism, identity, loyalty and racism, with the dialogue well scripted, but these themes are hardly presented as complex issues. Literally overnight O'Meara has a grasp on Sioux customs and language, with the Sioux not afforded any characterisation outside of O'Meara's musings (the authoritative voice after one day of going native!) and a brief scene where Blue Buffalo (Bronson) bizarrely accepts the Christian faith is the same as the Sioux faith. Ultimately the presentation of the Sioux is so one dimensional it's nigh on impossible to accept that O'Meara is now conflicted in his calling.

Then there is the small matter of Steiger's miscasting. As some critics have fallen over themselves to laud the film as an ambitious masterpiece, they have forgotten about the lead man's misplacement. The attempt at an Irish accent is woeful, it comes off as more like an Eastern Europe and Asian mix, thankfully he gives up later in the film to give our ears a rest. But he is also physically wrong as well, we are asked to believe that his stocky frame can outrun lithe and muscular Sioux warriors, it's insulting even when taking artistic licence into account. Amusingly some critics of the time praised Fuller for fluidly tracking running feet as opposed to full bodied character, truth is it wasn't artistic intent, Steiger had sprained his ankle so Fuller had to shoot another actor running! It's just one of the many irrelevant scenes in the picture.

The use of white actors to play Indians always causes friction with Western fans, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Here it cuts both ways, Bronson gets away with it, he looks the part, but Flippen is embarrassingly unconvincing as Walking Coyote and Montiel as Yellow Moccasin is done up like a porn version of a Sioux squaw! (voice dubbed by Angie Dickinson as well). It's hard to focus on strong thematics when Steiger is talking through a mouth full of beans, Flippen looks like he has wandered in off of an L.A. street and Montiel is making you horny with a shapely thigh! Where the film lifts itself above average is with Fuller's knack for stylised violence and the location photography of Biroc (latterly Ulzana's Raid). Officially the first film to use squibs for bloody impact of weapons, Fuller utilises this to the max, there's also some excellent flaming arrow work as well. Even though the print I viewed of the film is drab and scratchy, you can still see the great work of Biroc as he brings the beauty of St George, Utah, to Fuller's harsher human edges. While Young's score is inventive in blending Civil War and Irish tunes into the otherwise standard Cavalry and Indians mix.

I consider myself a big Fuller fan, I love Forty Guns, Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss, but Run of the Arrow has too much wrong with it to deserve the "great" reputation it has. While those trying to put it forward as being this great inspiration that Dances With Wolves copied! Are seriously barking up the wrong tree. Each has a disenchanted soldier venturing West and encountering the Sioux, from there on in, though, the films vastly differ. 6/10

Run of the Arrow is the 50's equivalent of 'Dances with Wolves', so if you wanted to watch Dances with Wolves in the 50's, you had to watch this. That's not such a bad thing, however, as although this film isn't brilliant; it's better than Dances with Wolves. The story follows the adventures of Pvt. O'Meara (portrayed impressively by Rod Steiger), a soldier on the losing side of the American Civil war. He is dismayed by his side joining with the other side at the end of war, and he wants no part of the unified American nation. So, he travels south to the land of savages, because "at least they have pride". On the way to the south, he meets up with a renegade Sioux Indian scout and he finds an admiration for the Sioux culture. He later becomes the first man to beat the 'run of the arrow', and finds himself taking a squire and being accepted into their tribe.

The visuals are gritty and fairly brutal. There is also lots on offer in the way of entertainment: the scene in which our hero beats the run of the arrow is well filmed and exciting, which is just the way it should be. Aside from this, the movie also features a quicksand scene, a near skinning alive sequence and a great Americans vs. Indians battle scene. It also stays entertaining all the through, and that is much to the movie's credit; it's something that Dances with Wolves couldn't manage anyway. The film also features two great actors, which very much impress. The aforementioned Rod Steiger is the first, who takes the lead role. Although he doesn't ever set the screen on fire, he is always believable in his role, and that is enough. Aside from Steiger, the film also features the talents of the very talented Charles Bronson as a Sioux Indian.

The story is nothing new for those who have seen films like Dances with Wolves, or Witness; but remember, this film predates both of those by nearly thirty years, so it's not unoriginality on the part of this. In fact, my only major criticism of the film is that it's under-ambitious. It never really gets under the skin of it's story, and that is a loss to the film as if it had have done; it would have been a more well rounded film. Smaller criticisms are that it's very short, and related to that; the ending feels very rushed and doesn't really satisfy the viewer. Still, The Run of the Arrow is a classic film and one that should not be missed by anyone lucky enough to see it.

RUN OF THE ARROW This Western is about as off the beaten path of classic Westerns as I think that you can get. Made by Samuel Fuller in 1957, Run of the Arrow is an odd and strange film. Fuller, and particularly his film Steel Helmet, has been cited as an influence by directors from Quentin Tarantino to Stanley Kubrick. Fuller was also known to be more than a little bit of a nut, and the closest thing that the studio system came to releasing independent film in those days. The premise of Run of the Arrow, a southern civil war veteran who decides, rather than live in the surrendered south that he'll go out west and living among the Sioux, is both original and strange. The dialogue is often overwrought and Rod Steiger, in the lead role often falls into Charles Laughton like overacting. Steiger could be a very good actor, with the right director to keep him in check, as in On the Waterfront, or the exquisite The Pawnbroker. Here he is not kept in check and the price paid is often ham handed delivery. The Indians of course are played by white men with spray on tans, which adds to the strange almost surreal quality of the film. One of those actors, the only one who does not seem to require a spray tan, is Charles Bronson as the Sioux Chief. Bronson's extreme muscularity seems somehow out of place in this period piece. His bulging biceps and ripped abs seem too modern at a time when people were still buying gimmicks from Charles Atlas ads (And let's face it, Atlas was anything but buff by today's standards.). (As a side note, I once had to audition for Bronson for one of his Death Wish movies. It was a second or third reading and the character was required to perform some martial arts. Bronson asked me how high I could kick. I said something cute like high enough. He walked up to me and asked me if I could kick above his head. I nodded. He wasn't that tall. He said "Show me.". So, without thinking I threw the kick. I remember that as I did I heard gasps from around the room that I would be crazy enough to do such a thing to a man who was still a pretty big star back then. Bronson, though, never blinked. He never took his eyes off of mine. And I remember thinking that, despite the fact that I had already been in more real fights than I could count, that this was no Hollywood actor. This was a hard man. And, despite his being in in his 60s at the time, I had the feeling that I would not want to mess with him. He shook my hand. He didn't squeeze, but I could feel this iron strength in his grip. I think I read somewhere that he had spent his youth as a coal miner. All this to say that this was had a very impressive presence...). Run of the arrow is a flawed and often melodramatic film. I know that all of this sounds like I'm not recommending it. But I am recommending it, for two reasons. First, if you are a lover of classic movies, and Westerns in particular, as I am, then Run of the Arrow is as different from the Westerns of its day as it could possibly be. And, second, as someone of native heritage, Run of the Arrow is the first film that I can think of, a rare film even by today' standards, in that the Native characters are the good guys, and it is white characters who are the bad guys. That alone makes Run of the Arrow, to me, more than worthy of seeing. It isn't perfect. It's very flawed. But it's not like any Western made in its day and its not like many Westerns made today. You may laugh at the wrong moments at times. But you'll probably remember Run of the Arrow long after you've forgotten more polished and well laid out classic movies. So I do recommend it. I recommend Run of the Arrow quite highly. Because it is strange. Because it is different. And because it tries to do something that far too few movies have to courage to do. It at least tries to be truly original. #movies #film #filmcritique #classicwesterns #runofthearrow #samfuller