La race qui meurt

I remember seeing James Stewart in the 1950 film BROKEN ARROW and being impressed at the positive view of the American Indian shown. Stewart's love (and marriage) for an Indian maidin who is killed by vengeful white men, was powerful and very touching. The 1925 Paramount silent version of Zane Grey's THE VANISHING AMERICAN is even more of an eye-opener! This is not a run of the mill "B" Western as so many of the films based on Zane Grey works were. This is a major Western in the tradition of Paramount's famous 1923 film, THE COVERED WAGON. No film (not even the marvelous films of John Ford)have shown the Indian as he must of lived in former times. The locations are the real thing (and beautifully photographed) and the numbers of extras are huge. One sees hundreds of Indians living in the clift dwellings and riding among the spectacular areas of Arizona and Utah (made famous in the Ford films). The first portion of the film attempts to trace the history of the first people to populate this land and follows their changing conditions through history. Some tribes grow weak and are over-taken by more powerful tribes. Powerful tribes are taken in by the arrival of the white men under Cortez and there first view of a horse (actually THE BOOK OF MORMON, a second testament to Jesus Christ gives a more acurate account of where the horses came from) -- but the Indians believe the horse to be some sort of god and thus subject themselves to the white man. The main story takes up just before American enters World War I and shows the sorry stake of the American Indian, now living on reservations and being cheated out of anything of value that they still have. Richard Dix does a marvelous job playing an Indian who has great values and respect for his people. The film shows the U.S. Governments need and request from the Indians for horses to help in the war. Through Dix's efforts they gain not only horses but enlistment from many of the Indian men. They play an important part in the War effort, but when they return to their land it is to conditions that have worsened, not improved. Thus the climax is set up. Truly an unusal film to survive from the silent era -- and one well worth taking a look at. The surviving material is beautiful to look at, but does contain a degree of flicker caused by the deterioration of the nitrate film that it was printed on. A choice addition to my DVD collection!

This excellent movie far transcends its own genre, with a resourceful and detailed production that makes for a worthy treatment of some thought-provoking themes. Adapted from the Zane Grey novel, it easily does justice to the interesting story, but it is much more than just a good melodrama. Ambitous in its scale, in its time-span, and in its themes, it puts the main story into a context that is as interesting to watch as it is challenging to many of the common conceptions about the history of the American West.

The main story features Richard Dix as a Native American on a reservation, who must contend with a wide range of persons from the 'white' races. Dix succeeds in making his character interesting, believable, and sympathetic. In particular, he does well with portraying the inner torment and longings of a perceptive and capable man who is forced by his environment to keep a lot of things inside.

The 'white' characters work well, and they are well-chosen so as to avoid a simplistic portrayal of those who went west. Noah Beery plays the villainous Booker effectively, making his ill intentions clear even when his character is at his most charming, yet at the same making it believable that such a reprehensible character could so often gain the upper hand. Lois Wilson is rather meek, but she works well with Dix in the relationship that is at the center of the story.

All of that would be good enough (and it doesn't even mention the beautiful scenery and photography in Monument Valley), but what makes the movie even better is that it is set in a broader context, which places the lengthy, heart-rending clash of cultures in the American West into a sweeping, far more comprehensive picture of the unending struggle of human cultures and societies as they rise and fall through the centuries. It balances a number of perspectives, and believably shows how complex the interplay between different cultures can be.

The lengthy prologue, often detailed and interesting in itself, paints a convincing and often harrowing picture of the nature of human societies in their struggles and rivalries through the ages. It adds a depth rarely seen to the eventual conflicts between the expanding USA and the Native American nations, and even if it were made today, it would be a bold statement that challenges stereotypes of all kinds. True indeed is the movie's theme that human cultures come and go, and that those standing strong today will someday pass away, with only the earth itself remaining always.

This movie surely deserves to be much better-known, for its top quality production of some often challenging material, its interesting story, and its themes that are worthy of careful and honest consideration. If it were filmed today, some of the details would probably be handled differently, but that is to a large degree a matter of style or fashion. The specific details are far less important than the movie's impressive depth and quality.

Okay, it is very possible to quibble with this film if you are too wrapped up in political correctness. Sure, it's a real shame that the film starred the white actor, Richard Dix, in dark paint as the Indian lead in the film. However, having White actors play Indians was pretty much the rule up to the 1960s, so I could easily overlook this. And, the beginning of the film can seem a tad preachy and irrelevant (though I liked it, Leonard Maltin's Guide knocked this section of the film). However, given that the film was made in the rather racist 1920s (when the KKK was on the rise and one of the strongest political forces in America), it is a truly amazing and transcendent film that definitely deserves to be seen and appreciated.

Unlike the typical cowboy movie of the day, the Indians in the film are neither blood-thirsty savages nor are they simple-minded. Instead, the are uniformly shown as decent Americans who want a fair shake and a part of the American Dream. In fact, their desire to become TRUE Americans and their love of their country make this a great patriotic film. While based on all the horrible injustices they received in the film, their fundamental decency seems amazing.

In addition to excellent acting, writing and direction, special attention must be focused on the spectacular and breathtaking cinematography--especially towards the beginning of the film. The scenes of the Grand Canyon are among the most beautiful ever filmed during the silent era and are in many ways reminiscent of moving versions of Ansel Adams photos. The film is a true work of art.

Although by today's standards The Vanishing American is over the top and melodramatic it still has a fine message about the American Indian and their place in the American dream. The sad truth was that this continent did belong to them and we took it from them.

Nothing to be either proud or ashamed of. A society that ranged from hunting and gathering to the beginnings of agricultural gave way to a to an industrial and full blown agricultural society. Just the sociological way of things. Everything gives way to something in time.

That being said, the tragedy of the American Indian was not often told in these years from the Indian point of view. As a writer Zane Grey was steeped in western lore and if a white man could tell the story he could.

After a prologue showing the subjugation, we see the desert tribes of today living on government handouts, trying to maintain respectability but the victims of a corrupt Indian agent played by Noah Beery. That was the way it was back then, under Democratic or Republican administrations, the Department of the Interior was a patronage trough and characters like Noah Beery were more common than we would care to admit.

Richard Dix plays a charismatic leader of his people who actually forms an Indian battalion to fight in what was called then, The Great War. It was reasoned we fight for America as good Americans we'll be treated as such when we return. Instead its business as usual as Beery has banished the tribe to desert scrub lands. Time to return to the fighting ways of our ancestors maybe.

As Dix's character is presented and he specialized in playing noble heroes on the silent screen and when talkies arrived, the personal tragedy of this tribe is that Dix comes along about four generations too late. He's the kind of leader who might have made a difference back in the day, but can only see the futility of what his tribe is about to do.

The Vanishing American shot in what became known as John Ford's Monument Valley was a big budget item for Paramount back in the day. It's got the sweep and grandeur of a John Ford western and a little bit of the influence of Paramount's number one director Cecil B. DeMille in this one who made a spectacle film or two of note.

Though melodramatic, The Vanishing American should still be viewed for the lessons it imparts to today's audience.

What a great surprise this movie is. This silent is a sleeper, a classic, wonderful film that does all the great things a soundless movie is capable of doing. Most importantly, this may be one of the most genuinely sympathetic movies ever about American Indians, because it does so without preaching, without portraying them as these mystical, magical humans, that, because they do things like use every piece of the buffalo they kill, are somehow better than all of us. You know the stereotype. It seems like Hollywood has never found a smart middle ground when it comes to portraying Indians: they are either savages or god-like innocents, but never normal. In The Vanishing American, the Indians are just regular people, largely pushed and pulled by fate and the inexorable spreading of the white way of life.

Here, we see the hurt inflicted on Indians in small ways, like a farm being taken by the Indian Agent from one man while he is away at war, or a tribe member taken to be a servant of the Agent, and dying in his service, and the pain this causes his survivors; we feel the sadness of the characters without being forced through a lecture.

At the same time, the movie is epic in nature, taking us through several millennia of time, and staging those massive battle scenes containing hundreds of extras that the silents, to me, do more effectively than the talkies ever could (perhaps it is the inherently haunting nature of all silent film that makes it seem so).

Richard Dix is acceptable as an Indian leader, but Noah Beery steals the show, playing one of the slimiest and sleaziest villains ever; he even kicks an Indian sitting at his office's doorstop, and not once, but twice, to get him out of the way!

This movie also takes patriotism very seriously; tears come to the school teacher's eyes when her class of young Indians says the Pledge of Allegiance. Religion, too, is treated with seriousness, as modern Hollywood never does; Christianity and the New Testament are held with reverence, but again, not too preachy.

I highly recommend this film to all silent film affectionados, as well as those interested to see a unique and oddly progressive film about Native Americans that was made in the 1920's.

Some small thoughts: (1) Early in the film, some Indians meet up with Spanish Conquistadors. The Indians are much more naked than we normally see them; No clothing at all up their hips: a little unnerving! (2) During an early battle scene, an invading tribe is attacking the cliff dwellers; the invaders climb tall ladders to reach the upper ledges. At one point, several ladders full of climbing invaders are seen; one of the ladders is pushed back, and a ladder full of invaders falls backwards, the men on it doomed to fall to their presumed deaths; if you look closely, though, the men on that ladder are clearly dummies.

(3) When Kit Carson's soldiers first hurry off to battle, the first carriage we see pulled by horses and supporting a cannon clearly loses a wheel as it flies down a hill. (4) Racial incongruity #1: The white Richard Dix, with make-up on to darken his features to make him look like an Indian, wearing a soldier's World War I uniform and fighting in the trenches. Racial incongruity #2: an Indian Chief introduced in a title, played by…Bernard Siegle!

(5) When the Indian children in the school recite the Pledge of the Allegiance, they have their arms extended out in a manner that to modern eyes may seem like a fascist salute; is this how they used to do it? (6) At one point, Richard Dix is standing on one of the great stone arches of the American West, tossing feathers from his staff into the wind; the first feather he tosses is blown by the wind back to him, and sticks to his arm! He quickly swipes it away, though, and continues his scene.