Sitting Bull (1954)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I give them credit for trying to be politically correct. There intent was noble, portraying the Indian as a victim of the American Military and indeed American Policy. That being said, I must admit that the acting in general was terrible, the dialogue was stilted and the historical accuracy was missing. I often laughed at Hollowood's early attempts to portray Native Americans with actors who did not have an ounce of Indian blood in them. J. Carroll Nash, a truly fine actor was Irish and sounded like an Indian from Brooklyn. Mr. Cody, who claimed to be an Indian was only married to one. He was Italian.It was difficult to be sympathetic to the lead character, Major Parrish only because the actor who portrayed him, Dale Robertson, was so bad. A for intent, F for execution.

Unless you are a big fan of the Italian actor Iron Eyes Cody, this one doesn't have much to offer. The subplot with Dale Robertson being rejected by his fiancée because he is demoted was irritating, that he takes her back after her new fiancée is killed is puerile. The historical blunders are pretty well covered in other reviews. The battle scene was sad, the same Indian was shot off his horse many times. The final shot of Custer, lying there with an obvious box under his shirt to hold up the arrow, was laughable. When they decided to have Sitting Bull arrive at the fort to save Robertson from a firing squad, they drove the final cinematic nail in this film's coffin.

Okay, I admit it, we haven't finished it yet; we're somewhere into the second hour. It was packaged as the back half of a dollar-store DVD with "Custer" on the other side, so we bought it on a whim to see how badly you could repackage an old (probably public-domain) film in modern technology.The answer is: pretty badly. Watching this film is a challenge to determine which part is the filmmakers' fault (e.g. wooden acting; stilted dialogue) and which part is the result of an aging film that no one can be bothered to handle properly (e.g. a badly discolored old print; a truly horrendous pan-and-scan job of what was once an interesting-looking widescreen film).Of special note is the maddeningly constant, wall-to-wall musical background: cheesy weeping strings and such, non-stop, as if the filmmakers were terrified of having actual silence in the background once in a while. On the other hand, this _is_ how they liked to make films back then, so if you look at it as a period piece -- no, not as an example of life in the west, but as an example of what Hollywood churned out in the early '50s: the lighting, the acting, the hairstyles, etc. -- then it's actually interesting to watch... for a while, anyway.

The best thing that can be said about this film is that it had good intentions. What makes of it almost a camp movie is the unreal, primitive, simplistic way that Sitting Bull, the battle of Little Big Horn, and all events related to it are presented. There are no qualms here about changing historical facts and the unreal attitudes of Major Bob Parrish (Dale Robertson) and also of Sitting Bull are very hard to accept. It was much more complex than that, as it can be seen on the most accurate film made so far about it "Son of The Morning Star". The fact that it was made on a big budget, Cinemascope, and has good battle scenes makes it easier to see. It also had the technical advice of "Iron Eyes Cody" who sure knew a lot about it, but probably kept most of it to himself.