Cheyenne Autumn

There are some superbly pictorial moments in John Ford’s last film, and if you dropped the risible elements and straightened out the meanders in the overblown production you might have something. Some respect is accorded to the Cheyenne, but there are clear limits to authenticity when the chief is played by Ricardo Montalban and the impetuous brave is Sal Mineo. Richard Widmark has some grit but mails in his performance as army captain, and Carroll Baker (“Baby Doll” herself!) is a hoot as the Quaker schoolmarm. Some of the cavalry action is stirring, but the ultimate battle scene is staged with all the verisimilitude of a high school play. The Cheyenne break out of the fort where they have sought refuge -- from the rigors of the long trek from the reservation they were assigned in arid Oklahoma back to their ancestral lands near Yellowstone --and the action is incoherent and implausible. Karl Malden is a Prussian officer supposedly sympathetic to the Indians who follows orders to imprison them till they agree to return to the reservation. Then there is the pathetic climax when Secretary of the Interior Edward G. Robinson rides out to make peace with the remaining Cheyenne, shot against back projection that looks superbad in Super Panavision. Not to mention an utterly inane narration, and a ludicrous comic interlude with James Stewart as Wyatt Earp. Despite the Remington paintings come to life in widescreen glory, I can’t justify showing this in my “John Ford and the American West” film series next spring at the Clark. (1964, dvd, n.) *5+*

P.S. -- Then I watched My Darling Clementine (1946) -- which I may never have seen before -- and it secured the final slot in the series. Henry Fonda is a decidedly more credible Wyatt Earp, and the film holds together much better. (Even though there was some push and pull over it, with the DVD having John Ford’s rediscovered original cut on one side and producer Darryl F. Zanuck’s release cut on the other.) So the lineup is set: Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Searchers. I’ll try to give Ford a fresh assessment at the time of the series, but I suspect he’ll never be a favorite of mine.