One Little Indian

No one ever asks the kid his name. Not the Apache (Rudy Diaz, actually Apache) at the beginning, not any of the other characters. If it’s doubtful that he remembers his original name, the one his birth parents gave him, it’s even more doubtful he has any emotional connection left to it. But he has a name he is emotionally tied to, the only one he’s ever known. Even the people who come to love him don’t care and keep calling him by the name he’s given at the beginning of the movie. They don’t ask how he feels about it, and indeed he introduces himself by it as though he never had another name.

The boy (Clay O’Brien) is one of a band of Cheyenne who have lost all their young men and are being rounded up by the military to go to the reservation. The boy’s adopted mom, Blue Feather (Lois Red Elk), helps him escape, but he is captured again. The chaplain (Andrew Prine) takes him in and names him Mark. At the Christmas service, Mark escapes again, heading toward the reservation and Blue Feather. He meets up with escaped prisoner Clint Keyes (James Garner), a former soldier who’s traveling to Mexico with camel Rosie and her calf Thirsty.

Late in the movie, Keyes describes to Captain Stewart (Pat Hingle) that he was convicted of mutiny and desertion during the raid on Dull Knife’s village. That puts us solidly in 1879. Keyes was trying to prevent US soldiers from killing Cheyenne women. The captain tells Keyes that it means he was following his own conscience to decide what orders he should and shouldn’t follow, and while he won’t disobey the general’s order that Keyes be executed, it’s obvious that he agrees that Keyes was doing the right thing. Which he most assuredly was.

Arguably, this is a revisionist Western. It’s solidly in the era; it came out the same year as High Plains Drifter. But whereas I’ve never actually finished High Plains Drifter because its hero is so odious, Keyes is considerably more likable. He wants what’s best for Mark. He’s kind to Doris McIver (Vera Miles), a widow they encounter in the mountains, and her daughter, Martha (Jodie Foster). If he doesn’t reliably get along with Rosie, well, who gets along well with camels? Wikipedia lists it as a comedy, but honestly it’s not very funny and mostly isn’t trying to be.

The movie’s better than I was expecting; the most worrisome aspect when I started it was that Mark is played by the same kid who played Bobby in The Apple Dumpling Gang. But Mark’s no more Cheyenne than Bobby; he was captured by the Cheyenne himself somewhere as a child and raised as one of them. No one in the movie uses slurs, and most of the Native American characters are played by Native Americans, including Jay Silverheels. Though we don’t really hear Mark speak Cheyenne. He speaks English, having learned it from other white people living in his village, but it’s clear that he cannot return to the woman he thinks of as his mother. She wouldn’t be allowed to raise him, because he’s of European descent.

Oh, it’s not perfect. Garner found it disappointing except for the time spent working with Jodie Foster. He couldn’t know that it was better than The Castaway Cowboy, because he hadn’t made The Castaway Cowboy yet. There’s some genuinely terrible rear projection, and the compositing when Martha looks out the cabin door to see Thirsty eating their corn is awful. There are several ways the movie could be improved, like by giving Blue Feather lines and the agency to express for herself that she knows they will take her son away from her no matter what. Because Mark is her son, and he isn’t truly given time to grieve. Though it’s clear Mrs. McIver knows he needs it.

I remain firm in my conviction that Disney has the best record, even in its live action films, of any studio up until about the time The Rocketeer came out. However, “the best record” doesn’t mean “a perfect record” or anything like it. Having even half their movies be high quality makes for one hell of a record, after all. Will this be the best Disney live action movie of 1973? I mean, it’s at least possible. I managed to forget even having seen Charley and the Angel, much less covered it for the column, until I looked to see why I wasn’t doing it this month. I don’t remember Superdad being fantastic, and I’m not expecting great things of “Chester, Yesterday’s Horse,” which wasn’t even a movie. The ‘70s were a rocky time in Disney.

Still, this is solidly in the “at least it’s better than” category. If it isn’t the best James Garner Western (hello, Support Your Local Sheriff), at least it’s not the worst (probably A Man Called Sledge, The Castaway Cowboy being in its own category). I’ve definitely seen worse live action Disney movies, worse revisionist Westerns, worse all kinds of things. Worse cinematic portrayals of the aftermath of the drive to the reservations, even. If the movie doesn’t give Mark enough space to grieve, at least it acknowledges that he cares about the Cheyenne.