Broken Arrow
Broken Arrow is a western Technicolor film released in 1950 directed by Delmer Daves and starred James Stewart as Tom Jeffords and Jeff Chandler as Cochise. The film is a fictional account of their relationship. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, and won a Golden Globe award for Best Film Promoting International Understanding. The protagonist/narrator says, "Funny, it never occurred to me that an Apache woman would cry over her son like any other woman." This quote brings to mind the lesson Mark Twain has Huckleberry Finn learn from Jim about how "even" black slaves have human feelings just as deep a parental love as whites. An idea perhaps taken for granted now, but revolutionary then and there (19th century America).
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Plot
Jeffords sees vultures, follows them to find a wounded Apache boy. He risks being stabbed to give the boy water from his own canteen, then removes the buckshot from the boy's back. He is then captured by Apaches who agree to let him go but recapture him when a party of white prospectors approaches. They kill some prospectors, but capture and torture others as Jeffords watches. Released, Jeffords tells his story in town, which provokes a quarrel which ends without gunplay only because Jeffords is tired of the killing. Jeffords turns down a scouting job, deciding on his own to take advanced lessons in Apache language and culture so he can meet Cochise (the Apache leader) and request safe passage for the U.S. mail. He rides into the Apache stronghold, watched all the way by armed Apaches, and his meeting with Cochise goes well. He returns to town and announces the agreement and even bets $300 that the first five mail riders to be sent out will return safely.
Points to ponder
This movie asks the viewer to consider what it means to be "civilized" or "savage".