BY JOHN M. WHALEN
It goes without saying that Kirk Douglas is a
Hollywood icon. From his first role as Walter O’Neill in “The Strange Love of
Martha Ivers,†(1946) to “Spartacus†(1960) and beyond that until his last, so
far, appearance in a made for TV movie, he remains—even in retirement after a
stroke and a helicopter crash— one of those larger than life movie stars, the
kind they just don’t make any more. He
had a look and a style. Those shiny white teeth could as easily smile
charmingly at you or snarl like a barracuda. His bright blue eyes could be full
of tenderness one minute, as in his love scenes in “Spartacus,†or fierce and
mean as in “Gunfight at the OK Corral.†He played complex characters that were always
a mix of good and bad, but never evil.
Such a character is Johnny Hawks, the
frontier scout he plays in “The Indian Fighter†(1955), made in the middle part
of Douglas’ career. He had moved up from tough guy film noir roles by then and
this was the first film made by his own production company, Bryna Productions. The
film was made on location in Oregon by Hungarian-born director Andre de Toth, who
wore an eye patch, had seven wives and 19 children (talk about the kind of man
they don’t make anymore!). It tells the story of Hawks, who is brought in by
the Army to lead a wagon train of settlers through Sioux Indian territory. Rather
than the peerless good guy who has no flaws, Johnny has one major hang-up. He
is easily distracted. When, in the opening scene he spies Onahti (Elsa
Martinelli) the beautiful daughter of Chief Red Cloud (Arthur Franz), bathing
in a river sans clothes, he can hardly keep his mind on his job. His ogling is
interrupted by Sioux brave Grey Wolf (Harry Landers) who says, if he lays one
more eyeball on the fair Indian lass, he’ll set him up for a quick scalp
treatment. Nevertheless, Johnny during negotiating safe passage for the wagon
train and trying to establish peace terms between the tribe and the soldiers at
Fort Benham, manages to make a few passes at Onahti, who resists at first, but
soon surrenders to Johnny’s virile charms.
Plot complications come in the form of two
shifty ne’er-do-wells, Lon Chaney and Walter Matthau, who spend most of their
time getting the Indians drunk enough to tell where they can find the gold said
to be located on Sioux land. When Johnny abandons the wagon train for a night
to have a little dalliance with Onahti, all hell breaks loose. Several braves
are killed by the gold hunters and the tribe goes on the warpath. The wagon
train narrowly makes it back to the fort, and everybody wonders, where the heck
is Johnny Hawks ? Johnny wakes up that morning under a tree lying next to the
Indian chief’s daughter. He had a great night, but, boy, is he in trouble.
The film climaxes with the Indians besieging
the fort in a scene that resembles something out of “The Vikings†(1958), one
of Douglas’s later films, The Sioux set the fort on fire by lobbing balls of
flame at it from long poles cut from saplings. I don’t know if that has any
historical authenticity, but in his commentary, provided on a separate audio
track, Western film historian Toby Roan, makes note of the scene’s uniqueness,
and gives credit to the filmmakers for at least coming up with a different
approach to the old Indians-attacking-the fort scene.
Incidentally, Roan is the proprietor of a
highly-recommended blog on western films, https://fiftieswesterns.wordpress.com/, where you will find
all kinds of interesting info on older westerns. I had seen “The Indian Fighterâ€
before, but I wasn’t aware, until Roan pointed out that beloved character actor
Hank Worden ("Old Mose" in “The Searchersâ€) actually plays two parts in this
movie. He’s a jail house guard, and also Crazy Bear, one of the Indians that
Chaney and Matthau ply with liquor, trying to find out where the gold is. Roan
provides a ton of other insights into the making of the film. He knows which
construction company built the full-sized Fort Benham out there in the Oregon
wilderness and even what kind of lumber was used.
Kino Lorber presents “The Indian Fighter†in
a 1080p transfer on Blu-ray in Cinemascope with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.
Colors are bright and clear, and Wilfred M. Kline’s cinematography of the
Oregon forests and the snow-covered Cascade Mountains in the distance are a
treat for the eye. It was de Toth’s first Cinemascope film, and he used the
wide-angle lens in several scenes to do a full 360 degree pan of the beautiful
vistas surrounding the actors. The inestimable Franz Waxman contributed a very
colorful score for the film, and it’s too bad this release is not in stereo.
“The Indian Fighter†is an entertaining
movie, but it’s not without problems. De Toth’s direction seems to be focused
more on the scenery than the bloody frontier action taking place, resulting in
an overall lack of intensity. Douglas, however, and his supporting cast acquit
themselves well. Douglas displays a lot of physicality, doing quite a bit of
stunt work himself. In fact Roan points out that doing a horse fall, he ended
up with a broken nose.
It’s also definitely a film of its time. It’s
not likely that you could make a film today entitled “The Indian Fighter†unless
it was about a boxer in Bombay. And Johnny Hawks’ forceful seduction of Onahti
in the river bed might be protested by feminists today as nothing more than a
glorified rape. However, the movie gets points for a sympathetic portrayal of
the Sioux (even though there are no native Americans in the cast), whose Chief
Red Cloud tells Johnny his concern about the white men coming into the
territory is not the loss of the gold they are after, but the pollution of the
air and water they will bring. Nice environmental touch. “The Indian Fighter†is a mixed bag, good but
not without its flaws, just like Johnny Hawks.
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John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales." Click here to order from Amazon.