Soldier Blue
Encyclopedia
Soldier Blue is a 1970
American
Revisionist Western
movie directed by Ralph Nelson
and inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre
in the Colorado Territory
.
The screenplay was written by John Gay
based on the novel Arrow in the Sun by Theodore V. Olsen
(republished as Soldier Blue after the movie was released). It starred Candice Bergen
, Peter Strauss
and Donald Pleasence
. The title song was performed by Buffy Sainte-Marie
.
In September 1970, Dotson Rader of The New York Times
, wrote that Soldier Blue "must be numbered among the most significant, the most brutal and liberating, the most honest American films ever made".
. Gant is much devoted to his country and duty; Lee, who has lived with the Cheyenne for two years, declares that in this conflict she sympathizes more with them. The two must now try to make it to Fort Reunion, the army base camp.
under Colonel John M. Chivington
massacred a defenseless village of Cheyenne and Arapaho
on the Colorado Eastern Plains
.
At the time of the actual historic massacre, the panel of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War declared:
The account of the massacre is included as part of a longer fictionalized story about the escape of two white survivors from an earlier massacre of U.S. Cavalry troops by Cheyenne, and names of the actual historical characters were changed.
Released during the Vietnam War
, shortly after public disclosure of the My Lai massacre
, the film was controversial at the time not only for its subject matter, but also for its graphic depictions of violence. Nelson, who also appeared in the movie in a minor role, pushed the depiction of the violence to explicit levels, showing nudity during rape scenes, as well as realistic close-up
shots of bullets ripping into flesh.
British author and critic P.B. Hurst wrote:
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Revisionist Western
Revisionist Western
The Revisionist Western, Modern Western or Anti-Western traces to the mid 1960s and early 1970s as a sub-genre of the Western movie....
movie directed by Ralph Nelson
Ralph Nelson
Ralph Nelson was an American movie and television director, producer, writer, and actor.-Life and career:...
and inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
As conflict between Indians and white settlers and soldiers in Colorado continued, many of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, including bands under Cheyenne chiefs Black Kettle and White Antelope, were resigned to negotiate peace. The chiefs had sought to maintain peace in spite of pressures from whites...
in the Colorado Territory
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado....
.
The screenplay was written by John Gay
John Gay (screenwriter)
John Gay is an American screenwriter.Born in Whittier, California, Gay began his career writing episodes for television anthology series such as Lux Video Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, and Goodyear Television Playhouse. He made his film screenwriting debut in 1956 with Run Silent Run Deep...
based on the novel Arrow in the Sun by Theodore V. Olsen
T. V. Olsen
Theodore Victor Olsen was an American western fiction author.-Biography:...
(republished as Soldier Blue after the movie was released). It starred Candice Bergen
Candice Bergen
Candice Patricia Bergen is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown , for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal...
, Peter Strauss
Peter Strauss
Peter Strauss is an American television and movie actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s.-Personal life:...
and Donald Pleasence
Donald Pleasence
Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...
. The title song was performed by Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...
.
In September 1970, Dotson Rader of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, wrote that Soldier Blue "must be numbered among the most significant, the most brutal and liberating, the most honest American films ever made".
Plot
A young woman, Cresta Lee (Bergen), and young U.S. private Honus Gant (Strauss) are joined together by fate when they are the only two survivors after a cavalry group is massacred by the CheyenneCheyenne
Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
. Gant is much devoted to his country and duty; Lee, who has lived with the Cheyenne for two years, declares that in this conflict she sympathizes more with them. The two must now try to make it to Fort Reunion, the army base camp.
Production notes
The movie provided the first motion picture account of the Sand Creek massacre, one of the most infamous incidents in the history of the American frontier, in which Colorado Territory militiaMilitia (United States)
The role of militia, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the...
under Colonel John M. Chivington
John Chivington
John Milton Chivington was a colonel in the United States Army who served in the American Indian Wars during the Colorado War and the New Mexico Campaigns of the American Civil War...
massacred a defenseless village of Cheyenne and Arapaho
Arapaho
The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people are seen as an early...
on the Colorado Eastern Plains
Colorado Eastern Plains
The Eastern Plains of Colorado refers to a region of the U.S. state of Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains and east of the population centers of the Front Range.-Geography:...
.
At the time of the actual historic massacre, the panel of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War declared:
The account of the massacre is included as part of a longer fictionalized story about the escape of two white survivors from an earlier massacre of U.S. Cavalry troops by Cheyenne, and names of the actual historical characters were changed.
Controversy
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, shortly after public disclosure of the My Lai massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
, the film was controversial at the time not only for its subject matter, but also for its graphic depictions of violence. Nelson, who also appeared in the movie in a minor role, pushed the depiction of the violence to explicit levels, showing nudity during rape scenes, as well as realistic close-up
Close-up
In filmmaking, television production, still photography and the comic strip medium a close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots . Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene...
shots of bullets ripping into flesh.
British author and critic P.B. Hurst wrote:
Credits
Avco Embassy Pictures, 1970- Producer – Harold LoebHarold LoebHarold Albert Loeb was an American figure active in the arts in Paris in the 1920s. Loeb attended Princeton University where he boxed. Loeb served in World War I and after the War was Ernest Hemingway's sparring partner. Loeb served as co-editor of Broom, An International Magazine of the Arts . He...
and Gabriel Katzka - Executive Producer – Joseph E. LevineJoseph E. LevineJoseph E. Levine was an American film producer.He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His Embassy Pictures Corporation was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as Hercules , The Carpetbaggers, Harlow, The Graduate, A Bridge Too Far and The Lion in Winter.Levine is famous...
- Director – Ralph NelsonRalph NelsonRalph Nelson was an American movie and television director, producer, writer, and actor.-Life and career:...
- Screenplay – John GayJohn Gay (screenwriter)John Gay is an American screenwriter.Born in Whittier, California, Gay began his career writing episodes for television anthology series such as Lux Video Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, and Goodyear Television Playhouse. He made his film screenwriting debut in 1956 with Run Silent Run Deep...
- Music – Roy BuddRoy BuddRoy Frederick Budd , was a British jazz musician and composer, known for his film scores.Born in Mitcham, Surrey, Budd became interested in music from an early age and had built up a vast musical repertoire by the age of eight...
Cast
- Cresta Maribel Lee – Candice BergenCandice BergenCandice Patricia Bergen is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown , for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal...
- Honus Gantz – Peter StraussPeter StraussPeter Strauss is an American television and movie actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s.-Personal life:...
- Isaac Q. Cumber – Donald PleasenceDonald PleasenceSir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...
- Colonel Iverson – John AndersonJohn Anderson (actor)-Biography:Born in Clayton, John Anderson grew up in Quincy and Adams County, Illinois.Prior to a prolific acting career, Anderson served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II where he met artist Orazio Fumagalli who became one of his best lifelong friends.He was known for several...
- Spotted Wolf – Jorge RiveroJorge RiveroJorge Pous Rosas is a matinee idol, with a career spanning three continents , primarily in Spanish language media...
- Captain Battles – Dana ElcarDana ElcarDana Elcar was an American television and movie character actor. Although he appeared in about 40 films, his most memorable role was on the 1980s and 1990s television series MacGyver as Peter Thornton, an administrator working for the Phoenix Foundation...
- Lieutenant McNair – Bob Carraway
- Lieutenant Spingarn – Martin West
- Private Menzies – James HamptonJames Hampton (actor)James Wade Hampton is an American actor, television director, and screenwriter.-Early life:Though born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Hampton was reared in Dallas, Texas, where his father operated a cleaning business. He majored in theatre arts at the University of North Texas in Denton...
- Sergeant O'Hearn – Mort MillsMort MillsMort Mills was an American film and television actor who had roles in over 200 movies and television episodes. He was often the town lawman or the local bad guy in many popular westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. From 1957-1959 he had a recurring co-starring role as Marshal Frank Tallman in Man...
- Running Fox – Jorge RussekJorge RussekJorge Russek was a Mexican actor. He died of a heart attack on July 30, 1998.-External links:...
- Indian Woman – Aurora Clavell
- Agent Long – Ralph NelsonRalph NelsonRalph Nelson was an American movie and television director, producer, writer, and actor.-Life and career:...
External links
- Hurst, P.B. (2008), The Most Savage Film: Soldier Blue, Cinematic Violence and the Horrors of War, Jefferson, NC: McFarlandMcFarland & CompanyMcFarland & Company, Inc. is a book publisher of primarily academic and adult nonfiction based in Jefferson, North Carolina. Its president and editor-in-chief is Robert Franklin, who began the enterprise in 1979...
, ISBN 978-0-7864-3710-8