Difference between revisions of "Flaming Star"

Revision as of 14:50, April 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. The chief keeps the conversation light, not coming to the point in public; at the end of the visit, he acknowledges that Pacer is not ready to make the required choice but only repeats his people's viewpoint

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

Pacer's mother fares less well, discovering that the women of tribe have totally ostracized her: to them she is no longer Kiowa.