Broken Arrow (1950)
Noteworthy for being an early western that depicted the natives in a more positive light, but also a pretty fine western on its own merits.
The conflict between the settlers and the Apache are not fully explained, but we just need to know it is there and have been going on for years. It is easy enough to understand the resentment and distrust between them. But one must take the first step towards peace and James Stewart leads the way here.
The story is very straight forward, leaving little doubt about the message they were going for, with plenty of dialogue blatantly stating the moral message. That does seem a bit clunky today, but I think it actually works quite well regardless. Nothing wrong with speaking plainly and to the point.
Stewart does a decent job as the everyman good hero, though not one of his most remarkable western roles. Chandler is also decent as the Apache chief Cochise, but mostly the movies qualities comes from the story and its message, and most characters are merely a device for getting the story about how difficult it is to get peace - and not the least make the peace last. It is not a personal story by any means. I do however now wish for a modern movie dealing with the same historical peace treaty. There really is potential here.
It may have laid the foundation for everything between The Searchers and Dances With Wolves, but watching it today more than 70 years later, it has to be at least acknowledged some its short comings with a modern lense. Like not using natives as actors and while the moral core is good, there is a clear omission of showing the brutality done to the natives by the settlers in that conflict. The only battle scenes we see is Apache attacks on the natives, which is at the least historically unbalanced.
Rating: 3.5