Difference between revisions of "Flaming Star"

Revision as of 23:13, March 21, 2010

Flaming Star (1960) stars Elvis Presley as Pacer, a half-Indian, half-white man in an area with deadly conflicts between Indians and whites.

The movie begins with a surprise birthday party for a white man and an Indian raid on a settler's cabin. Then a lone Indian carrying a spear appears as evening falls, desiring to talk to Pacer, who refuses any but a daylight meeting with this Kiowa chief.

The next day the two sons discover the Indian butchery when they visit the store, and a relative of one of the deceased threatens to murder Pacer in retaliation (although the viewer knows he had nothing to do with the raid). Then 8 men visit the house demanding the white son clarify where his loyalty lies.

After that, Paw and the white son ride off, and two white trappers visit the house begging a meal. When they learn that Pacer and his mother are Indian, they turn arrogant, calling him boy and Red Boy and one making sexual advances towards his mother.

• This scene shows the degenerate side of whites better than anything else: racism combined with a taste for adultery.

The Kiowa chief appears, and Pacer comes out from the walls of his house to hear his demand: join their side of the war, or be killed (along with his mother). Maw counsels rather than give a quick answer to go to the Indian camp and discuss the matter with her relatives there.

"Do we come out to take their land? No, they come against us."