Soldato blu

I saw "Soldier Blue" quite recently on British Television. About 2 hours before it was aired, the BBC did a program on George Armstrong Custer, which dispelled the story of a 'Last Stand' using archaeological evidence: The Seventh cavalry made a cowardly dash for it when the Indians attacked. Unfortunately(or fortunately depending on your point of view) the cavalry troopers and Custer were swarmed by Indians as they attempted to escape. Complete disorder swelled through the ranks of troopers. The last stand was more of a chaotic melee than a heroic action. Moreover the Indians were better armed, using repeating rifles whereas the Cavalry were using single shot Springfield carbines. My boyhood notion of Little Big Horn was shattered within a matter of minutes. I lost so much respect for Errol Flynn!!! But nothing, absolutely nothing could prepare me for what was to come later on that night. My watching Soldier Blue coincided with the climax of the tragedy in Soham, England. Therefore I was already upset.

The haunting opening song is a portent of a terrible tragedy. I got the feeling that something truly horrific was going to happen. It's a song that I won't forget for a long time. The film's two protaganists(Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss, a US cavalry trooper), escape from Indians who have attacked an Army wagon train(carrying amongst other things The soldiers wages). The subsequent storyline lulled me into a false sense of security. Bergen and Strauss begin to fall in love whilst deliberating about the plight of the Indians (Bergen feels they have been mistreated. She knows this. She had lived with Cheyenne Indians for 2 years. Strauss feels differently. His naivety does show...Great acting!!Well done Peter!). Actually I got very bored with this, thinking that the movie was turning into one of those slushy 'opposites attract' stories. But the introduction of Donald Pleasance as the sadistic gunrunner changed that. Strauss and Bergen are abducted by him. This point in the movie is important. I feel the tone begins to change. Those haunting lyrics returned to my head as I watched Bergen and Strauss attempting to escape from their abductor(respite is given by the sight of Candices' wonderful rear end). Strauss, being a soldier is obliged to burn the gunrunners wagon. The gunrunner has a large number of guns which he is going to sell to the Cheyenne indians. Bergen tries to stop him, but fails. The two escape and hide out in a cave. Bergen then leaves Strauss, possibly feeling that their relationship can come to nothing as she's due to marry another Soldier. She's found by cavalry scouts and brought back to their camp. Here she learns that the Cavalry troop are about to attack a Cheyenne village a few miles away. Coincidentally the village is the one she lived in for 2 years. She leaves the cavalry troop and heads straight for the village, hoping to warn them of the pending attack. This leads us to the finale. I won't describe it as I think it is beyond me. I don't think I can describe the effect it had on me either. Before this I had some idea of how the American Indians had been treated by the Europeans. The documentary on the ill fated Custer and his troop had only hinted at this type of treatment, and of course increased my capacity for cynicism.

The finale of Soldier Blue confirmed what that haunting song had hinted at. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. I was shocked beyond belief, and as an avid movie fan I have seen some shocking movies. Even the finale in "Don't Look now" comes nowhere near this. The director should be credited. He rams his point home (although some people may feel a little exploited). Forget all that nonsense about this movie referring to the My Lai atrocities in Vietnam. It's a poignant testament to human innocence(The Indians) and a disturbing testament to a successful act of genocide. Namely the systematic destruction of the native Americans.

I recommend this movie. Although it's not for everyone. The plot line rambles a bit at times. The photography is beautiful. Although some might think it typically 1960's. The acting is top notch. But it's NOT for the squeamish or faint hearted. Keep well away from this movie regardless of the fact that you bore the brunt of the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

After a paymaster cavalry unit is slaughtered by the Cheyenne in 1877, a surviving soldier and Indian sympathizer team-up to get back to the nearest fort (Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen). The young man struggles with contempt for what he considers a treasonous attitude along with his growing affection for the brash woman. Then he sees the awful truth firsthand.

"Soldier Blue" (1970) is an entertaining, but odd Western. At heart, it's a fun romance between a patriotic military man and a profane "free-spirit" who is able to survive the challenges of the American wilderness precisely because she has shed Victorian inanities. This is bookended by a Cheyenne-led massacre on a non-threatening cavalry group and the military massacre of a peaceful Cheyenne camp, filled with women and children. The latter is obviously based on the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.

I respect that the movie shows how massacres happened on both sides, but it stacks the deck against the Caucasian militants by showing them butchering women & children and not vice versa.

The opening Indian attack ensures that the viewer's sympathies are with Honus (Strauss, the eponymous 'Soldier Blue'), so you travel the same journey as him: At first, regarding the Indians as bloodthirsty savages who have no qualms about committing mass murder and abusing corpses if it'll help them acquire firearms but, ultimately, ending up with the revelation that Honus' 'tribe' can be just as barbaric when fitting, and even more so.

Barbaric attacks applied to both uncivilized First Americans and more civilized New Americans, but more so with the former, which is documented. Since the 1960s-70s there has been an overemphasis on the injustices committed by the US military or militants/settlers and we get a handful of examples: Wounded Knee, Bear River and Sand Creek (the latter being what this is loosely based on). Yet we never hear the other side of what provoked these events, including the atrocities that First Americans committed against New Americans. We never hear of the Dakota "War" of 1862 where Santee Sioux went on the warpath murdering between 600-800 settlers, which constituted the largest death toll inflicted upon American civilians by an enemy force until 9/11 (civilians, not soldiers); The Ward Massacre; The Nez Perce uprising, which killed dozens of settlers in Idaho and Wyoming; and the Massacre at Fort Mims. We never hear of the countless innocent settlers (not soldiers) who were murdered by bands of young "warriors": While a chief was signing a peace treaty on the tribe's behalf, they were out robbing, raping and murdering.

In short, it's easy to be pro-AmerIndian sitting on the comfort of your sofa, but not so much when you & your loved ones are threatened with gross torture, rape and slaughter in the wilderness.

The Euro-settlers wanted the land and resources while the AmerIndians craved the valuable technology of the New Americans. Both sides used treaties for peaceable relations while still trying to get what they desired when war was too costly. Both opted for combat when deemed necessary.

I should add that the real military leader who ordered the attack on the Sand Creek camp in southeast colorado, John Chivington, wasn't even an Army officer, but rather a self-appointed head of militia in the Colorado Territory during the Civil War when most capable men were away fighting for the Union in the East (remember, the real Sand Creek Massacre happened during the Civil War, not in 1877). The atrocity Chivington & his men committed at Sand Creek was separate from the US Army and not typical of government policy. In the immediate aftermath, Captain Silas Soule, an officer of the First Colorado Cavalry, condemned it as an unjust and savage massacre executed on a peaceful camp.

I'm part Abenaki and love American Indian culture, but the Leftist whitewashing of Indian atrocities and the corresponding revisionist history is deceitful and unbalanced. "Soldier Blue" is guilty of this to a degree, but features enough balance to make it worthwhile (as opposed to the grossly dishonest "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" from 9-10 months earlier). It's entertaining and offers equilibrium concerning the Indian Wars even though its sympathies tend to be with the First Americans.

The film runs 1 hour, 52 minutes, and was shot in Chihuahua and Sonora in northwest Mexico.

GRADE: B.

Well, nearly the whole film tells the love story of a woman who has grown up at the Indians and an American soldier as well as their survival in the wilderness. The last 15 minutes however have the same shocking effect other controversial films like "Cannibal Holocaust" or "I spit on your grave" have got: it is shown how the US-cavalry massacres/slaughters an innocent and peaceful Indian tribe, how children get killed or even beheaded, women get raped and tortured to death, how genocide was done in the name of freedom, democracy and liberality. Extremely graphic, shocking and disturbing!!! A positive aspect of "Soldier Blue" is, that this film doesn´t deal with the typical "good Americans/bad Indians"-cliché: in this movie you won´t see a glorious hero like John Wayne riding into the sunset at the end, because "Soldier Blue" shows the darkest side of the American glory..!

As released in the UK, this movie pushed the limits of movie violence to the virtually unwatchable. People literally were sick in the theatres. I saw the movie several times in the theatres and on video. It lost none of its impact on repeated viewing. My research indicates that since the movie depicted the massacre of an Indian village, it was thought not politically correct for viewing in unedited form in the US. It does show the horror of war in a most graphic way. I have not seen anything since that is even remotely close. The highly edited US version shows the power and degree of censorship that existed in the US. To my knowledge, the movie is still not available in the US in unedited form.

What starts as a rather funny journey of Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen teasing and fighting each other, ends in a massacre of an Indian village shown in - for that time - very graphical and violent pictures, even a little gore. I like the movie because of the chemistry between both actors and find the mix of comedy and cruel war scenes not out of order - Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman, coincidentally also published in 1970, got a similar mix. I guess the absurdity of war, the Vietnam War still raging, was one of the main impulses to make such a blend - how should one survive such mad times and still safe his soul without humor? Soldier Blue: funny and sad at the same time.