Brilliant and touching

Awesome Movie

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie, followed by a young reader's book two years later, started me on a study of the Battle of the Little Bighorn that has now lasted for over 50 years. Before watching it this evening, I had not seen the movie since it was released in theaters in 1958. I was pleasantly surprised to find some accurate historical details stuck into the fictional story, such as a bullet hitting Keogh in the knee and going on into Comanche--they clearly did some research, since that is an odd detail most people wouldn't know. The terrain at the battle looked very much like reality, as well. The Indians were another matter--I could swear I saw the stitching down the center of Sal Mineo's wig in an early close-up--but it wasn't bad for 1958, and the use of the Indians as central characters was both good and unusual.They also got the names of Custer's horses right, but for some reason called Keogh's other horse Pokey. It was actually Paddy. And as for Tonka Wakan--it is my understanding that that is roughly equivalent to naming your horse Jesus Christ. It may translate to "The Great One," but I believe it is usually used to refer to the Great Spirit.The characterization of Custer as a nasty, Indian-hating bad guy is totally not true. Custer actually liked Indians--it was simply his job to be at war with them, just as he had previously been at war with his West Point classmates who had joined the Confederacy. I am currently reading a very fine book on the Cheyenne War of 1864-69, and it is clear that there was a lot of killing and nastiness on both sides. By the time of Custer's demise, many tribal groups had surrendered and gone to live on reservations--but not Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse. They probably would have preferred to be left alone by white people, but the discovery of gold in the sacred Black Hills had made that impossible. So they had one final victory before it was all over, and that is the story told in this movie.Sitting Bull did have a nephew named White Bull, and other characters, such as General Terry, Lt. Nowlan, and Trooper Korn were also real. To the best of my knowledge, Yellow Bull was fictional, and I am not sure the representation of Lakota tribal culture was very accurate. The horse-breaking methods shown were common to cowboys, but not Indians--gentle training was more the norm.The details of other errors are too numerous to go into--the bit Keogh describes as "simple" seems to me to be a curb, rather than a snaffle; the uniforms are not right; the Indian clothing is weird--etc., etc., etc.But generally speaking, the movie is much more accurate than I remembered, and it is certainly a classic example of a Disney family movie. Thanks, Walt, for helping to change my life.

Sal Mineo eschewed the urban areas which most of his films had him in for the Old West as he plays a young Sioux brave who captures and tames a wild horse he names Tonka. This is a fine film that still holds up well today and gave Mineo one of the best parts he ever had.Sal and his peer Rafael Campos are warriors in training and Sal after trying to capture a brown stallion he admires loses the rope and a bow and quiver of arrows and gets the riot act read him by Sitting Bull. Still he goes out and actually finds and tames Tonka. But a warrior cousin H.M. Wynant claims the horse by seniority. Mineo would rather see the horse anywhere else but with Wynant and he frees him.Through a chain of circumstances the horse gets captured and sold to the cavalry where he's renamed Comanche and he becomes the property of Captain Myles Keogh played by Philip Carey. And that is the background of the story of Mineo and the horse, the Battle of the Little Big Horn where the only survivor on the cavalry side was the horse Comanche.All the players including Custer and Keogh are real people and the Battle of the Little Big Horn is well staged by Disney Studios. And next to Mineo the most notable performance in the film is that of Britt Lomond as General George Armstrong Custer.If you are used to the image of Custer as portrayed by Errol Flynn in They Died With Their Boots On then what Britt Lomond did with the role will be a revelation. For those of you who think that Custer was glory hunting Indian hating fanatic than you will love to hate Britt Lomond. Lomond is best known as Captain Monasterio in the first episode of the Disney Zorro TV series. He was pretty hateful as Monasterio and just as hateful as Custer.Tonka is a nice coming age story told from the American Indian point of view. Kids will universally identify with both Mineo and Campos. Tonka is also one of Disney Studios best films of the Fifties and one of its best ever.

Originally, this was to have been called "Comanche," the title of the novel it is based on. Just before the Disney company was about to release their latest western, though, a B oater starring Dana Andrews with that name hit theatres. That one dealt with Comanche Indians. This one, with Comanche, a horse owned by a member of the seventh cavalry that survived the Little Big Horn and led to the tradition of the riderless horse still in existence today. Disney changed the name to Tonka, which is what a young Sioux boy, White Bull (Sal Mineo) calls the horse after catching it - short for Tonka Wakon, or the Great One. The change of titles actually works to the film's benefit, for Disney and company placed more emphasis on the Indian side of the story than the cavalry's, making this the first movie ever made to tell the story of Custer's Last Stand from the Indian point of view, at least up to Little Big Man (1970) - and in truth that was from the point of view of a what man raised by the Indians. Mineo, who would again play an Indian youth in a much bigger film, John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964), is believable, and the film is sympathetic to Native Americans, without being patronizing or condescending, in a way that we expect today, but which no Hollywood filmmaker but Disney did back in the fifties - he was P.C. before P.C. existed, and may just have created the climate of tolerance that we strive for today. Philip Carey plays the sympathetic cavalryman Miles Keogh, and it's worth noting that this was the first Disney western NOT to star Fess Parker, who had been their headliner since Davy Crockett four years earlier. Very accurate staging of the Little Big Horn battle, as this is one of the only films ever made to reveal that Custer (Britt Lomond, the villainous Monastario on Disney's ZORRO TV show) had his hair trimmed short just before the battle, and that he did not carry a sword to the battle - and neither did any of his men. Those who expect Disney films to be sanitized ought to catch this one, as the Last Stand is quite bloody considering the time period in which it was made, forcing child viewers to deal with the unromantic truth of warfare on the plains, circa 1876. A little gem worth rediscovering.

A real wholesome movie, especially from the perspective of the American-Indian. If not mistaken, back when this was released it was meant to be a Sal Mineo vehicle. Mineo plays White Bull, a young boy coming to grips with becoming a man. Others of note in this scenic drama are Joy Page, Rafael Campos, Slim Pickens and John War Eagle. Doubtful you would watch this more than once.