Cheyenne Autumn

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

John Ford's last western film, Cheyenne Autumn was allegedly produced to compensate for the hundreds of Native Americans who had bitten the dust in Ford's earlier films (that was the director's story, anyway). Set in 1887, the film recounts the defiant migration of 300 Cheyennes from their reservation in Oklahoma territory to their original home in Wyoming. They have done this at the behest of chiefs Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalban) and Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland), peaceful souls who have been driven to desperate measures because the US government has ignored their pleas for food and shelter. Since the Cheyennes' trek is in defiance of their treaty, Captain Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark), who agrees with the Indians in principle, reluctantly leads his troops in pursuit of the tribe. While there was never any intention to shed blood, the white press finds it politically expedient to distort the Cheyennes' action into a declaration of war. Thanks to the cruelties of such chauvinistic whites as Captain Oscar Wessels (Karl Malden), the Cheyennes are forced to defend themselves--and whenever Indians take arms against whites in the 1880s, it's usually misrepresented as a massacre. Only the intervention of US secretary of the interior Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson) prevents the hostilities from erupting into wholesale bloodshed. Based on a novel by Mari Sandoz, Cheyenne Autumn is a cinematic elegy--not only for the beleaguered Cheyennes, but for John Ford's fifty years in pictures. It is weakest when arbitrarily throwing in a wearisome romance between Richard Widmark and pacifistic schoolmarm Carroll Baker, who out of sympathy for the Indians has joined them in their 1500-mile westward journey. When the Warner Bros. people decided that the film ran too long, they chopped out the wholly unnecessary but very funny episode involving a poker-obsessed Wyatt Earp (James Stewart). Contrary to popular belief, this episode was included in the earliest non-roadshow prints of Cheyenne Autumn; the scene was excised only when the film went into its second and third runs in 1966 (it has since been restored). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)
• Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Features:
  • cc
  • New digital transfer from restored picture and audio elements
  • Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1
  • Commentary by Joseph McBride, author of Searching For John Ford: A Life
  • Vintage featurette Cehyenne Autumn Trail
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Subtitles: English, Francais & Espanol (Feature Film Only)

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Color Cinematography - 1964 (William H. Clothier)

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Pictu - 1964 (Gilbert Roland)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Richard Widmark - Capt. Thomas Archer
       Carroll Baker - Deborah Wright
       James Stewart - Wyatt Earp
       Edward G. Robinson - Carl Schurz
       Karl Malden - Capt. Oscar Wessels
       Sal Mineo - Red Shirt
       Dolores Del Rio - Spanish Woman
       Ricardo Montalban - Little Wolf
       Gilbert Roland - Dull Knife
       Arthur Kennedy - Doc Holliday
       Patrick Wayne - Second Lieutenant Scott
       Elizabeth Allen - Guinevere Plantagenet
       John Carradine - Maj. Jeff Blair
       Victor Jory - Tall Tree
       Mike Mazurki - 1st Sgt. Stanislaus Wichowsky
       George O'Brien - Maj. Braden
       Sean McClory - Dr. O'Carberry
       Judson Pratt - Mayor Dog Kelly
       Carmen D'Antonio - Pawnee woman
       Ken Curtis - Joe
       Anna Magnani - Camilla

• Director:

  John Ford

• Producer:

  John Ford, Bernard Smith

• Screenwriter:

  Renzo Avanzo, Jack Kirkland, James R. Webb, Giulio Macchi, Ginette Doynel

• Book Author:

  Maurice Sandoz

• Cinematographer:

  William H. Clothier, Claude Renoir

• Composer (Music Score):

  Alex North

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Alex North

• Editor:

  Otho Lovering, Mario Serandrei, David Hawkins

• Art Director:

  Richard Day

• Set Designer:

  Darrell Silvera

• Costume Designer:

  C. Frank Beetson, Jr., Ann Peck

• Makeup:

  Norman Pringle

• Special Effects:

  Ralph Webb

• Stunts:

  Rudy Robbins