Soldier Blue

Soldier Blue
Directed by	Ralph Nelson
Written by	Theodore V. Olsen (novel Arrow in the Sun) John Gay (screenplay)
Produced by	Gabriel Katzka Harold Loeb
Starring	Candice Bergen Peter Strauss Donald Pleasence
Cinematography	Robert B. Hauser
Music by	Roy Budd
Distributed by	AVCO Embassy Pictures
Release date	August 12, 1970 (New York City)
Running time	112 min
Language	English

Soldier Blue is a 1970 American Revisionist Western movie directed by Ralph Nelson and inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre in the Colorado Territory.

The screenplay was written by John Gay based on the novel Arrow in the Sun by Theodore V. Olsen (republished as Soldier Blue after the movie was released). It starred Candice Bergen, Peter Strauss and Donald Pleasence. The title song, written and performed by Buffy Sainte-Marie, was released as a single and became a top ten hit in the UK as well as other countries in Europe and Japan during the summer of 1971.

In September 1970, Dotson Rader of The New York Times, wrote that Soldier Blue "must be numbered among the most significant, the most brutal and liberating, the most honest American films ever made".

Plot

A young woman, Cresta Lee (Bergen), and young U.S. private Honus Gent (Strauss) are joined together by fate when they are the only two survivors after a cavalry group is massacred by the Cheyenne. Gent is much devoted to his country and duty; Lee, who has lived with the Cheyenne for two years, declares that in this conflict she sympathizes more with them. The two must now try to make it to Fort Reunion, the army base camp, where Cresta's fiance, an army officer, waits for her. As they travel through the desert with very low supplies, hiding from the Indians, they are spotted by a different tribe of Indians than the Cheyenne. Under pressure from Cresta, Honus fights with the tribe chief and, by fluke, ends up stabbing him in the stomach. He finds himself unable to kill the chief, even as the latter's own men stab him for his defeat, and leave the couple alone. Eventually, after being shot at by a white man who supplied guns to the Indians, Honus finds himself alone in a cave where Cresta leaves him to get help. She arrives at Fort Reunion, only to discover the that her fiance's cavalry plans to attack the peaceful Indian village of the Cheyenne the day after. She runs away on a horse and reaches the village in time to warn the Spotted Wolf, as the Cheyenne chief is called. The latter refuses to indulge in warfare and prepares to extend a hand of friendship to the American soldiers using the US Flag. The army men however, do not refute the orders of their Commanding Officer to open fire at the village. What follows is a massacre of Indians, so violent and brutal that it came to be known as the most shameful day in the American Civil War. The movie gets extremely graphic here and shows with abandon the ruthlessness of the 700 army men as they wipe out 500 Indians, most of them women and children.

Production notes

The movie provided the first motion picture account of the Sand Creek massacre, one of the most infamous incidents in the history of the American frontier, in which Colorado Territory militia under Colonel John M. Chivington massacred a defenseless village of Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Colorado Eastern Plains.

At the time of the actual historic massacre, the panel of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War declared:

As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the verist savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumental to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their in-apprehension and defenceless condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man. Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities.

The account of the massacre is included as part of a longer fictionalized story about the escape of two white survivors from an earlier massacre of U.S. Cavalry troops by Cheyenne, and names of the actual historical characters were changed.

Controversy

Lobbycard displayed in theaters

Released during the Vietnam War, shortly after public disclosure of the My Lai massacre, the film was controversial at the time not only for its subject matter, but also for its graphic depictions of violence. Nelson, who also appeared in the movie in a minor role, pushed the depiction of the violence to explicit levels, showing nudity during rape scenes, as well as realistic close-up shots of bullets ripping into flesh.

British author and critic P.B. Hurst wrote:

A good number of critics in 1970 believed that Soldier Blue had set a new mark in cinematic violence, as a result of its graphic scenes of Cheyenne women and children being slaughtered, and had thus lived up – or down – to its U.S. poster boast that it was "The Most Savage Film in History." A massive hit in Great Britain and much of the rest of the world, Soldier Blue was, in the words of its maverick director, Ralph Nelson, "not a popular success" in the United States. This probably had less to do with the picture's groundbreaking violence, and more to do with the fact that it was the U.S. Cavalry who were breaking new ground. For Nelson's portrayal of the boys in blue as blood crazed maniacs, who blow children's brains out and behead women, shattered for ever one of America’s most enduring movie myths – that of the cavalry as good guys riding to the rescue – and rendered Soldier Blue one of the most radical films in the history of American cinema. The film's failure in its homeland might also have had something to do with the perception in some quarters – prompted by production company publicity material – that it was a deliberate Vietnam allegory.

Credits

Avco Embassy Pictures, 1970

• Producer – Harold Loeb and Gabriel Katzka
• Executive Producer – Joseph E. Levine
• Director – Ralph Nelson
• Screenplay – John Gay
• Music – Roy Budd

Cast

• Candice Bergen as Cresta Maribel Lee
• Peter Strauss as Honus Gent
• Donald Pleasence as Isaac Q. Cumber
• John Anderson as Colonel Iverson
• Jorge Rivero as Spotted Wolf
• Dana Elcar as Captain Battles
• Bob Carraway as Lieutenant McNair
• Martin West as Lieutenant Spingarn
• James Hampton as Private Menzies
• Mort Mills as Sergeant O'Hearn
• Jorge Russek as Running Fox
• Aurora Clavell as Indian Woman
• Ralph Nelson as Agent Long

Reception

The film was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1971.

External links

• Soldier Blue at IMDb
• Soldier Blue at Rotten Tomatoes
• Hurst, P.B. (2008), The Most Savage Film: Soldier Blue, Cinematic Violence and the Horrors of War, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, ISBN 978-0-7864-3710-8