How sad is this?

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Steiger plays a Reb who won't surrender, but unlike Ethan of "The Searchers", he embraces the native American culture when he loses his own country.We get a great adventure story here, with shades of the searchers, the Naked Prey, Dances with wolves, and long before those films were made.More important, we get three dimensional characters. Even the two "heavies", one from each culture, are depicted with added dimensions. They are cruel, but their cruelty is motivated. They aren't "rebels without a cause". Indeed, what we see is "rebel with a cause" throughout.There is much one could say to endorse this film, but I feel that would spoil it. What sticks out is how many of the characters behave in "humane" ways, even when they're expected not to, from both sides. Charles Bronson and Rod Steiger portray characters you feel actually existed, who mirror each other, and come to understand each other. The way this unfolds is amazing in script and directing, as well as acting.This is action packed, but also thought provoking drama. You could put this on a stage and get much the same reaction, but it works great in cinema, too.

Samuel Fuller's near masterpiece.The film starts on Palm Sunday 1865 at Appomattox.Confederate Private O'Meara shoots down a mounted Union officer.While rifling through his pockets O'Meara realises he is still alive.In an act of mercy he takes him to a Confederate dressing station.Close by General Lee is surrendering to General Grant.O'Meara is about to shoot Grant when the surgeon tells him he had better shoot Lee as well because the shame would kill him.He then hands O'Meara the bullet he has extracted from the wounded officer telling him it is the last bullet fired in this war (historically incorrect).Back home his friend has the bullet remade and presents it to O'Meara. O'Meara is an unreconstructed Rebel and his Mother suggests a rope is the only answer for him. O'Meara played by Rod Steiger sports an accent that can only be described as Hollywood Irish,strangely his mother played by Olive Carey has no trace of an Irish accent at all.He decides to head west where there is no Yankee jurisdiction incidentally riding the horse he has "liberated" from the Union officer.He meets up with an elderly renegade Indian,Walking Coyote,played by J.C.Flippen in a scene stealing cameo,who tells O'Meara that he could have been a chief but he couldn't stand the politics.In five minutes screen time O'Meara learns the Sioux language,tribal history and customs. Unfortunately they are captured by the Sioux led by Crazy Wolf.O'Meara is about to discover another old Sioux custom,that of being skinned alive,when Walking Coyote invokes The Run of the Arrow where you are given an arrows flight start made to run barefoot and then hunted to the death.The Indians agree.Walking Coyote drops dead from a heart attack on the run but O'Meara is made of sterner stuff.He's a hefty fellow but he has a turn of speed that an Olympic champion might envy.This is not far fetched as Confederate infantry men were known for their speed of march,usually barefoot,not for nothing were they known as foot cavalry.He loses his chasers and is rescued by a beautiful Indian maiden called Yellow Moccasin and her young companion Silent Tongue,a dumb Indian boy. Yellow Moccasin takes O'Meara to the Indian village where he informs the chief,Blue Buffalo played by Charles Bronson,that he has survived the run of the arrow which Crazy Wolf begrudgingly confirms.O'Meara is told he will never be harmed by the Sioux.He then collapses with a fever.Yellow Maccasin volunteers to care for him and in a steamy scene (in more ways than one) uses body heat to sweat the fever out of him and also during the process he loses some of his inner demons. A fully fit O'Meara marries Yellow Moccasin adopts Silent Tongue as his son and is accepted into the Sioux nation while remaining a Christian.Blue Buffalo remarks tolerantly "Same God, different name". The U.S.Government want to build a fort on Sioux land so a big meeting is called between Sioux chiefs and U.S.Army officials.The General in charge played by Tim McCoy (in his last film role) humorously remarks to O'Meara that he has never shaken hands with an Irish Sioux before,O'Meara replies he's never shaken hands with a Yankee General either.Terms are agreed on the proviso that the Sioux have a representive to ensure the treaty is kept.Thats O'Meara's job. The officer in command Captain Clark played sympathetically by Brian Keith tells O'Meara that Appomattox was not the death of the South but the birth of the United States and when one of his troopers saves Silent Tongues life at the cost of his own by pulling him out of a swamp he remarks "We Yankees are human".Sadly this is not the case with the second in command played by Ralph Meeker who by coincidence is the same officer that O'Meara shot at the beginning of the film.Is he grateful? is he hell.He's more miffed about his horse.Captain Clark is then killed by renegade Sioux led by Crazy Wolf.Lt.Driscoll now in command and a bit of a glory hunter decides to build the fort in a forbidden area ignoring O'Meara's warning.O'Meara is beaten unconscious.When he comes to the Sioux are attacking,a brilliantly staged bloody scene. Driscoll has been kept alive and is suffering unmentionable tortures being skinned alive.O'Meara,in an act of common decency and using the same bullet shoots him again this time killing him instantly and saying "They had a right to kill him but not like that" He realises he can never truly be a Sioux and that he owes his allegiance to the United States. He,his wife ,his adopted son and the surviving troops are allowed to leave unmolested. The voice over repeats the earlier statement "Appomattox was not the death of the South but the birth of the United States" then a caption comes up which says "The end of this story can only be written by you". O'Meara,funny Irish accent and all is magnificent,he may be a blowhard about Yankee injustice but in reality he is an honourable,decent and humane man.Likewise Blue Buffalo comes across as a religiously tolerant man and you can sense his approval over O'Meara's act of decency. Mixed marriages with happy endings were a rare occurrence in films of the time,eg James Stuart's Indian wife gets killed in the film "Broken Arrow".Indian wives were more likely to be raped and killed by white bigots (off screen) their husbands then seeking bloody revenge.Richard Widmark's film The Last Wagon was a classic example. One hopefully happy ending was in the 1968 film The Undefeated where Rock Hudson's Confederate Colonel's daughter has a relationship with John Wayne's Union Colonel's adopted son a full blooded Indian,with full parental approval.

Run of the Arrow (Samuel Fuller, 1957) is an embryonic version of Dances With Wolves in director Sam Fuller's familiar tabloid style: short, flamboyantly written and with the best stuff right at the top. It begins on Palm Sunday, 1865, "the last day of the war between the states", with Fuller taking us to the very heart of the conflict via a mesmerising opening tracking shot. Corpses are strewn across the smoking landscape, where an unmanned cannon has fallen silent, smashed to pieces. An air of desperation and exhaustion hangs heavy over the action. A Yankee soldier on a knackered horse staggers towards some unknown, meaningless destination. A shot rings out and he slumps to the ground. A Confederate infantryman (Rod Steiger) lowers his gun and moves forward. Ransacking the man's pockets, he finds a food parcel and begins eating the spoils off the dying man's stomach. That line from The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down comes to mind: "We were hungry, just barely alive." Having had his fill, Steiger straps the man to the guy's own horse, and takes him to a field hospital. It's a brilliant intro. But then Steiger starts talking and the film goes downhill.Accents are a funny thing. It's nice when someone gets a voice down pat, but it often feels like window-dressing. And illogical window-dressing at that, since Nazis don't generally converse with one another in heavily-accented English. Jimmy Stewart gave a great performance in The Shop Around the Corner without attempting a Hungarian accent, and Claude Rains was a fitting French captain in Casablanca despite his distinctive English tones. Keeping your own accent also means you avoid taking a road to supposed 'authenticity' that's full of pitfalls. A terrible voice can sink a film, or at least prove a major distraction, and that's the case here. Playing a second-generation Irish immigrant fighting for the Confederacy, who finds a new home with the Sioux, Steiger opts for an accent that can best be described as 'South Asian Norwegian'. Perhaps he was confused about playing an honorary Indian, because no matter how bold and progressive the film is, offering an insightful look at Sioux customs, it still has a hero who sounds like a sort of Slumdog John Qualen. By d'yevil.Such self-satisfied broadsides aside (I'm sorry, I really do like Fuller), Run of the Arrow turns out alright. The titular rite-of-passage - which sees Steiger forced to outpace some rampaging Sioux, or else find a new skin - is exciting and well-paced, with an intelligent follow-up in the second half. Fuller's much-celebrated focus on the feet during that sequence was actually enforced by Steiger's sore ankle, but elsewhere there's some strong direction that makes the most of several ambitious, realistic sets. Steiger is periodically effective, even hampered by that ridiculous voice, with Ralph Meeker perfectly cast as his main nemesis - a cigar-chomping Indian-hater - and Brian Keith an effective moral yardstick, though the rest of the cast is largely nondescript. The interesting, well-researched portrait of the Native American lifestyle is ultimately overtaken by a drawn-out action climax that begins effectively, with an interesting subversion of Western folklore that sees the Indians riding to the rescue, but frankly goes on a bit. Fuller's script also lacks clarity, even when dealing with his favourite theme of redemption, which is very unusual for this filmmaker.In the end, Run of the Arrow is a fascinating, admirably ambitious film, but it's a long way from being a classic, with confused plotting and an inability to build on its fascinating opening scenes. On this evidence, it's a damn shame that Fuller never made a full Civil War picture, as he seems ideally suited to the material. But then again, every Fuller film starts and ends with a bang, and though John Ford's 21-minute section of How the West Was Won ('The Civil War') is extraordinary, his feature-length treatment of the conflict he remained so obsessed with, The Horse Soldiers, is a shambles.Trivia note: This was the first movie to use blood squibs. No Run of the Arrow, no Wild Bunch. A small price to pay for that peculiar thing Steiger is doing with his larynx.

Watched this the other day and it was an interesting Cavalry vs. Indian (Sioux) film taking place before the establishment of Ft. Abraham Lincoln, and Custer. Steiger (who personally I think sucks at accents) plays a Confederate soldier with a weird Irish/Southern accent who fires the last shot in the Civil War, at Ralf Meeker, who he wounds.He basically refuses to surrender after Appomattox and heads off to the Northern Great Plains along the way he befriends an old Sioux cavalry scout, and he undergoes the ritual "run of the arrow" and becomes accepted by the tribe, where he continues the fight against the US.During the negotiations with the Sioux over establishing posts to separate settlers (keeping them off the hunting grounds) traveling West and the natives their chief, played by Charles Bronson, and the chief cavalry engineer played by Brian Keith they agree to select Steiger as chief Sioux scout for the expedition, not all of the Sioux are in concert with this. Keith and Steiger sort of hit it off but Meeker is a hot headed second in command who after Keith is hit by a renegade arrow decides to locate the new post in a different location than agreed, to igniting a war.Its an interesting take on the subject and the film is worth a watch but its nothing outstanding.