Massacre

"Massacre" finally made it to TCM at 2:15 PM on August 9, 2011 as part of an all-day salute to Ann Dvorak. It may be that "Massacre" was on TCM before I started receiving the cable station in 1996, but I doubt it. As Joe Thunderhorse, a traveling show star who knows the score, Richard Barthelmess does a great job. Part of the reason for that has to the movie's director, Alan Crosland, whose career was on a downward slide at Warner Bros. For that matter, co-star Ann Dvorak was also in the Warner Bros. doghouse, in part for going on an unauthorized vacation in 1933.

On the screen, all you see are great talents making a fast moving movie that has a cynical view on life. The storyline involves a cabal of crooked Indian reservation officials who think nothing of robbing Indians of their land and covering up crimes like rape, while Indian Affairs Commissioner Dickinson in Washington, D.C. can only wring his hands until Joe Thunderhorse comes along. In my opinion, I think that director Alan Crosland is responsible for the jaded attitude towards authority you see in this movie. You see that same attitude in Crosland's great "Don Juan," a movie that also moves along at a rapid pace. So, while pabulum like "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" shows up on TCM ad nauseam, "Massacre" was MIA until this week.

Out of curiosity, I looked up movie posters for "Massacre." One of the posters I found on the Internet has in big block letters the name BARTHELMESS at the top, above a color picture of the actor wearing an Indian headdress and, running across the picture. the title "Massacre" in smaller script type letters. Within the B of Barthelmess, in very small letters, is his first name Richard. From a distance, the poster reads BARTHELMESS in Massacre. A very modern approach, everyone knew who Richard Barthelmess was in 1934, a big star, no need to advertise his first name much. Yet in a few months, after he got his walking papers from Warner Bros., his movie career went downhill fast and now, unlike actors like James Cagney and Betty Davis, almost no one remembers him.

On one of the last TCM Preservation Showcase shows he presented, Roddy McDowell (looking very pale) mentioned before the start of the movie coming on, "Midnight Alibi," that the star was the great Richard Barthelmess. To me, Barthelmess in the early 30s movies I saw him in seemed to be too serious and sometimes too much like a punching bag. That is not the case in "Massacre," where he plays his character consistently as a slick dude who won't let anyone push him around. When Harry Warner tried to cut Barthemess' contract pay in 1933, just as the studio had cut the salaries of the non-union studio workers, Barthelmess did not go along. Warner Bros. issued a press release that Barthelmess had agreed to make three movies a year instead of two for the same yearly salary, but that was window dressing. Once Darryl Zanuck handed in his resignation to protest Warner Bros. reneging on an agreement to restore studio workers' cut salaries to their former level, Barthelmess' career at Warner Bros. was kaput. His last movie at Warners, "Midnight Alibi," directed by Alan Crosland, was only 58 minutes long and looked to be filmed on a shoestring budget with Barthelmess playing out the string.

Thanks to TCM, viewers like me got a chance to see the real Richard Barthelmess in action in "Massacre."

With qualification, except the almost fairy tale ending.

The story in brief is- there is a native Indian, who at young age had moved to "Civilization" , (if one calls it - whenever one says of Civilization, I recall Andrew Sister's song on Civilization, Bongo Bongo Bongo). This child grows up (in whatever one calls it), goes to college, becomes white (except skin of course), and lands up as an entertainer, of the correct skin, the dare-devil horse riding Indian, Chief Joe Thunder-horse.

With his father on death-bed, he visits his home, in a reserve, after more than a decade (13 years to be precise, since the kid sister who was 2, had become 15). There he first hand (and second-hand too) observes the way the facilities, funds and even the lands and properties of the Indians are being squeezed out by the Whites (agent and his cronies, holding all the important portfolios). When his sister is assaulted by one of them, he takes the law in his hand and naturally, the local court puts him behind bar. With help, he escapes and lands up at Capital, and knocks on the door of DA, with help of one of the good Whites, the commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Nothing wrong in the story, it is plausible, as shown. But unfortunately, in real life, with so much corruption and lobby (another name or rather the cause behind the corruption), even with this high-level help, one can't expect to get the case go to this length. There are powers to ensure that it is quickly and silently killed. With media support, may be possible, but that wasn't there much, and when there is a race against race, probably the media in real life too would have been biased (and of course media houses need finance). The senate, Judiciary and the DA office in Washington seemed to be quite white (no touch of grey, which in real life is too implausible, since with due regards these are more grey than not, anyway, they too need the donations).

What touches the chord, and the conscience is, that though it is 1935 movie, it is still as much contemporary as today... the right of the hosts being usurped by the guests - behaving like Plasmodia, Cuscuta, Mistletoe...

It would be unfair to think that the defenseless preys are only human. If one expands the view, this is what is happening at every corner of the world, by the greedy humans, against the natives, the nature (trees and other non-human life) with no defense for them. Replace the Reserve with a Reserve Forest, or a Zoo, and one could see it happening every where. Killing by not taking care of sick, if not killing directly, the 'rape' of nature,.... That is in addition with the racial strife between natives and immigrants, at every corner of the world (where the natives hadn't yet been exterminated).

There is one interesting thing in the movie... Probably since it was Barthelmess, they could get away with that, definitely they won't have, had it been a real Indian. In the very start, the Indian-hero is shown to be in relationship with a white society girl (Claire Dodd). Probably with gender reversed, it would have been palatable, but this? At that age, when even in this age, there are snide remarks? I wonder.

Although Richard Barthelmess was on the downside of his career which began in silent films with Massacre you couldn't judge by the quality of this film. I am really surprised that this film is not better known. It is a remarkable portrayal of the American Indian in the New Deal years and the entrenched powers arrayed against them as a conquered people.

The story begins as Barthelmess is summoned to the Sioux reservation because his father is ill. He finds when he gets there that his father is dying mainly because of the lack of medical attention. After that he learns of other injustices suffered and he's determined to do something about it.

The villains in Massacre are Dudley Digges as the Indian agent and Arthur Hohl as a missionary. You know this film was made before the Code was in place because after this you could never show a man of the cloth as a villain. In fact Barthelmess after his father dies is determined to bury him with the traditional Indian ceremonial rites. That totally drives Digges and Hohl up a wall as they do not want this Indian Bolshevik which is what Digges calls Barthelmess to be bringing these Indians back to paganism and against what the missionaries have been trying to instill in the Sioux. When you think about it, this film is decades ahead of its time.

Ann Dvorak plays the Indian maid who falls for Barthelmess and Sidney Toler plays the man that Barthelmess kills forcing him to flee the reservation and seek redress from Washington, DC. What happens, well the Sioux nearly go on the warpath as they are in a take no prisoners mood.

Sad to say in a film so sensitive about Indian rights and stereotypes, black people come in for a bit of racial stereotyping in this film. It is probably what keeps the film from getting a higher rating or from being a classic on the subject like Devil's Doorway or Fort Apache. Still Massacre is a great film that too few people know about.

Rodeo stunt rider Richard Barthelmess (as Joe "Chief" Thunder-Horse) thrills crowds at the Chicago "World's Fair" celebrating a century of progress in Native American Indian affairs. An assimilated Sioux, Mr. Barthelmess receives word that back on the Reservation his father is dying. Barthelmess takes time out to fulfill a sexual fantasy with shapely blonde Claire Dodd (as Norma), then drives to the Reservation with his happy-go-lucky manservant. On the way, he is attracted to red-skinned Ann Dvorak (as Lydia). Barthelmess discovers his forgotten brethren are being mistreated, and need help...

He reveals himself in great physical shape when he strips after his opening stunts, but the camera shows Barthelmess modestly keeps his underwear on in the shower. The make-up and hairstyle the actor used to compliment his regrettable facial surgery works for the "Indian" character. Female figure watchers should be alerted to Ms. Dodd's early scenes, as she fills her dress exceptionally well. Also watch for the car chase wherein future "Charlie Chan" star Sidney Toler (as Shanks) gets his comeuppance.

***** Massacre (1/18/34) Alan Crosland ~ Richard Barthelmess, Ann Dvorak, Dudley Digges, Claire Dodd

Richard Barthelmess stars as Joe Thunderhorse, a Sioux Indian who has grown up in white schools and is the star of a traveling "Old West" show. He goes back to "the reservation" when he gets a telegram that his father is dying. Once there he runs up against a trio of crooked white men, Dudley Digges as the Indian Agaent, Arthur Hohl as the incompetent doctor, and Sidney Toler as the henchman. He also meets Lydia (Ann Dvorak) who knows the realities of life on the reservation.

The whites treat Joe like any other Indian, but Joe has lived in the white world for 30 years and fights back. After he he convicted of attempted murder in an amazingly crooked court run by Digges, Joe breaks from the reservation and heads to Washington, where the case turns into a national event with a national network of graft and corruption exposed.

This is an highly entertaining film that publicizes the Indians' plight and (as of 1934) lack of civil rights.

Barthelmess is excellent as the crusading Joe. Dvorak is solid as the heroine. Digges, Hohl, and Toler are appropriately slimy. Co-stars include Claire Dodd, Tully Marshall, Clarence Muse, Henry O'Neill, Charles Middleton, and Robert Barrat.