La flèche brisée

While I have seen better westerns, I was really impressed with Broken Arrow. Not just because it is a very good film, but it is also different. While a lot of westerns deal with themes(some complex, some not so much)such as revenge and betrayal, Broken Arrow is a very poetic and elegiac film that you can see perfectly in how the story is constructed. Also the Indians here are portrayed as those in want of freedom with their families, which I found refreshing, seeing as I have seen them portrayed as quite brutal. Broken Arrow is a beautifully photographed film, the script flows nicely and is thought-provoking and the score is very stirring. The acting is fine, Debra Paget, breathtakingly-beautiful she is, and her scenes with Stewart are touching, is good but I couldn't help thinking they could have cast someone older. James Stewart is very believable in one of his better western performances, while Jeff Chandler gives the best performance of his career here and also the best performance of the movie too. All in all, excellent and very moving film. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Tagline: Of this motion picture the screen can be proud... Today... Tomorrow... A generation from now...

Worth repeating this tagline, because after seeing the film again for the first time in 42 years, it's right on. 50s westerns almost universally depicted Indians as pigeon-English speaking savages... or tried to talk Indian that translated to pigeon-Indian.

While the leading cast is all-Anglo, the perspective is that both sides in the Wild West were had more than a few intelligent, caring individuals among them. A willingness to sacrifice much (including renegades) to achieve a lasting peace is the message.

Jimmy Stewart had something to lose by doing a picture like this, but the acting here stands with any in his career. The portrayal of Cochise by Jeff Chandler is powerful, although unquestionably a little bit too noble-savagish.

"Let's mosey on over there" is a line spoken by Stewart toward the end of the film. Takes you back to a time when people took time to mosey.

A good-hearted picture by a little-known director standing up against the prevailing stereotypes. Wouldn't be surprised if Costner watched it more than once before making "Dances with Wolves".

Delmer Daves offers an important major role to an Indian character, treating him with quality and esteem as human being...

Stewart plays a scout who seeks to heal the divisions between the Apaches and white men… But while "Broken Arrow" is a perfectly acceptable depiction of frontier struggles, it does not display Stewart to the best advantages… Delmer Daves was competent enough, but he lacked the ultimate virility and intensity of Anthony Mann…

"Broken Arrow" examines, rather intensely and directly, the mistreatment and flagrant exploitation of the Indians by whites in the early West…

The strength of this often lyrically photographed picture which will a1ways have an honorable place among Westerns lies particularly in the touching dignity of Stewart's love and marriage to an Indian girl (Debra Paget). Indian haters, of course, stir up the usual sort of trouble and Stewart's bride becomes a victim with all the consequent poignancy for which the film is best remembered…

The over-wise Chandler counsels him that he must learn to live with his whiteness just as his new friends must contend with their own place in the cosmic scheme of things… Cochise has words of stark consolation for Stewart: "As I bear the murder of my people, so you will bear the murder of your wife."

The most interesting aspect of " Broken Arrow" is not the interracial romance between Stewart and Paget, but Stewart's relationship with Chandler's Cochise… There is intra-character complexity here, as Chandler struggles to overcome his disturb of all whites, and Stewart attempts to comprehend the different philosophy and cultural of the Indians…

Jeff Chandler was quite apt and professional… He was so believable in the role of the Apache chief Cochise that he was to essay it again in George Sherman's "The Battle at Apache Pass" in 1952… Chandler's facial bone structure lent itself to noble, incisive Indian profiles, and unlike other Caucasian actors he did not look out of place… He was even nominated for Best Supporting Actor at that year's Oscars

As the war rages between the American settlers and the Apache, former soldier Tom Jeffords happens upon a young Indian wounded after an attack. Taking upon himself to aid the boy, it's not long before the Apache show up intent on killing Jeffords by way of the war instincts. Pleading for Jeffords' life, the boy manages to get him spared by the Apache chief, Cochise. It's the start of a friendship that may just bring and end to the war and peace across the west.

Tho not the first "social" Western film made, Broken Arrow, it can be argued, is maybe one of the most important and telling genre films of the 50s. Showing humanist portrayals of the Apache and dealing out level headed tellings of the relationships between whites and the Native Americans, Delmer Daves' film is as relevant today as it was back on release. Adapted from Elliott Arnold's novel Blood Brother, the story follows Jeffords (a measured and fine James Stewart) as he attempts to broker peace between the warring factions. Firstly by convincing Cochise (Jeff Chandler bang on form) to allow the mail run thru the pass, something that brings suspicion and calls of Indian lover from Jeffords' own kind, and then to finally set up a peace pact at a time when violence and hatred was rife in the west.

As the friendship between the two men grows, Jeffords and an Apache girl fall in love (beautiful Debra Paget as Sonseeahray), thus giving the story a further jolt of momentum. The screenplay then really hits its stride, as Daves and his crew pit peace and inter racial love against a backdrop of bloodshed and savagery. Never glossing over just how hard peace is going to be, Broken Arrow retains intelligence and a sensitivity even as breakaway factions from both sides (for example we see Geronimo split the Apache and form a renegade front) are intent on killing off the peace process. It even has time for deep emotional kickers to reinforce the point of just how tough and unlikely peace and tolerance can be sometimes.

Broken Arrow was, and still is, a bold picture. In fact it can be argued that for the likes of Daves and Stewart, it was at the time very bold and risky career moves. But it paid off because the film stands up today as a picture of some distinction. It's themes and approach to its subjects are something that this generation, and all the future ones, will always find to be socially important. Boosted by Hugo Friedhofer's luscious score and taking advantage of the Lone Pine location shoot, Broken Arrow is a fine fine film that even non Western fans should be looking to absorb. 8/10

Broken Arrow was actually the start of James Stewart's return to the western genre. His first western was Destry Rides Again in 1939 and he waited for over 10 years to do another. After that he did them quite regularly.

Broken Arrow was made first, but held up over a year before release so Winchester 73 was actually Stewart's official return to the west. But both films had a lasting impact on his career.

This is the story of Army Captain Tom Jeffords who with a simple act of kindness started a peace process with the Apaches led by their charismatic leader Cochise. Jeffords, a veteran of the Union Army and the frontier wars is heartily sick of the slaughter he's witnessed and participated in. He finds an Indian boy who's been wounded by whites and he tends to them and heals him.

One thing leads to another and pretty soon Jeffords finds himself in the camp of Cochise with whom he strikes up a friendship. He also woos and wins an Apache maid named Sonseehray. Jeffords and Cochise with General Oliver O. Howard make a treaty with the Apache, at least most of them.

Broken Arrow did a lot for James Stewart, but even more for Jeff Chandler who plays Cochise. Cochise was a man in his late 60s when this was really taking place, but Chandler in his prematurely gray hair, portrays him well. Chandler got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Cochise.

Jeffords and Cochise are men of good will and decency who see an honest peace as the only answer. Of course both have to contend with people who won't or can't accept peace with the other race. It's those people and what they do break the peace that is the rest of Broken Arrow's story.

Delmar Daves is a good director of western films and in fact did another film about the U.S. government trying to make peace with another Indian tribe, the Modocs in Oregon, in the film Drumbeat. He gets good results out of the rest of the cast. Note the performances of Will Geer as an Indian hating rancher, Debra Paget as Sonseehray, and Basil Ruysdael as General Howard.

The screenplay was done by Albert Maltz of the Hollywood Ten. How ironic that Maltz was blacklisted after this film. I suppose a film about peace between the races and good will towards one's fellow men was highly subversive.

Broken Arrow was given much acclaim for being the first film to express the view that Indians were something more than bloodthirsty savages. That's not exactly true, other films around that time started saying the same thing. Nevertheless Broken Arrow's message is an eternal one.

Says so in the Scriptures if I'm not mistaken.