Cheyenne Autumn (John Ford / 1964)
Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler / 2015)
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (Kevin Costner / 2024)
Three Westerns... but extremely different in tone and style. Interestingly enough, the connecting thread here is none other than Wyatt Earp.
Cheyenne Autumn features what amounts to a special guest-star appearance from James Stewart as the famous marshal (with Arthur Kennedy playing Doc Holliday), and the other two movies star actors who have played him.
Cheyenne Autumn has the distinction of being John Ford's final Western (and
next-to-last feature film overall), and it's quite the elegiac, melancholy farewell to the genre. It's the tale of the last surviving members of the Cheyenne tribe, who decide to make a 1,500-mile journey from their reservation to their former homeland after being ignored by the U.S. government. It stars Richard Widmark as a sympathetic Union cavalry captain named Thomas Archer, who is charged with the unpleasant task of preventing the Cheyenne's return; Carroll Baker as Deborah, a Quaker woman who is engaged to Archer but nonetheless feels compelled to accompany the Cheyenne and provide aid; Karl Malden as the hidebound, by-the-book Fort Robinson commander Henry W. Wessells Jr., whose inflexibility ultimately leads to tragedy; Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland as Cheyenne tribal leaders Little Wolf and Dull Knife, respectively; Sal Mineo and Patrick Wayne as the two young trigger-happy hotheads on either side of the conflict; Edward G. Robinson as the Secretary of the Interior; and Dolores del Río as the Mineo character's mother (mysteriously not given any other name other than "Spanish Woman"
) Interestingly enough, the screenplay was written by James R. Webb, who also wrote the screenplay for
How the West Was Won two years earlier (and whose
Civil War segment was directed by Ford). That film was basically a celebration of the American pioneer spirit, almost an apologia for the ideal of Manifest Destiny (albeit a sometimes critically barbed one), but
Cheyenne Autumn almost feels like the necessary counter-balance to the earlier film, dealing as it does with the Native Americans who have been killed, abused and displaced as a result of U.S. government policy. I think both films would make for a very interesting double bill, and they both complement each other nicely. Not only do both films share the same writer, but four of the same actors: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart and Karl Malden. I don't necessarily think the movie ranks among Ford's all-time best, and in particular I think the whole Dodge City sequence (with the aforementioned performances by Stewart and Kennedy) is really out of place (although I understand the purpose it serves as a kind of satirical interjection to lighten the mood a little). But I
still think it's a worthwhile film, and I would still recommend it for anyone interested in Westerns or just in the overall cinematic oeuvre of John Ford.
I had read really good things about
Bone Tomahawk over the years, but I've only just seen it now. And I have to say I'm extremely impressed. Perhaps the ultimate horror / Western hybrid film, dealing as it does with a fearsome tribe of inbred Native Troglodytes who kidnapped the town doctor Samantha O'Dwyer (Lili Simmons) and a sheriff's deputy named Nick. Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell) leads a group of men, including Samantha's injured husband Arthur (Patrick Wilson), on a rescue mission to find them. I suppose that, broadly speaking, you could say that this movie is a cross between John Ford and George A. Romero, but I think perhaps "Howard Hawks meets Wes Craven" might be a better descriptive. I'm very much reminded of Hawks' approach to the Western genre, with its well-rounded, well-written supporting characters and dialogue, as well its ensemble approach, and I'm also very much reminded of something like Craven's original
The Hills Have Eyes (1977), with its tale of a family's desperate struggle for survival against a tribe of cannibals living in the mountains of Nevada.
And just this week, the first chapter of Kevin Costner's
Horizon saga came out on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD. I actually got the special 4K + Blu-ray combo pack in a steelbook package sold by Walmart. Alas, it doesn't have any bonus features (
), but I'm just very happy to own the movie, bare bones and all. I've actually seen
Chapter 1 twice in its theatrical run, and I'm keen to support Costner's gradually unfolding dream project in any way I can. I was incredibly disappointed in its lackluster reception at the box office (although at my local theater it attracted a pretty big crowd, even at the second showing I caught), and I sincerely hope that Costner can actually complete his saga and find some effective way of promoting the later chapters better and bringing it to those who would be interested in seeing it. One thing's for sure, whenever the next chapters of
Horizon come out, I'll be at the theater on opening day. (Fingers crossed...)