With the arrival of new teacher Martha Vickers on the Navajo reservation, the past is reopened for an old scandal to be revealed and a scheme against the residents to be attempted in regards to copper mining rites as well as prejudices within the nation itself. Philip Reed plays a Navajo man educated in white man schools, having taken on certain traits and the look of the white man, threatened with banishment by chief Pedro de Cordoba after being set up by local commissioner Donald Woods for committing crimes that he himself committed. Woods is willing to do anything, even commit murder, to get the copper rights.
This is a very unique Western in the sense that it takes place on a Navajo reservation and deals with the attempts to defraud them and other prejudices they faced. This was filmed in Cinecolor (a cheaper photography pretty cess not as vivid as Technicolor or other filming processes), but the print that I discovered was a very grainy black and white, looking almost like an early TV show. But the film is still better than expected because it shows a more realistic portrayal of the natives that you rarely see in the movies, especially in the heyday of the B Western.
The print, even as poor as it was, did have one benefit. It made itself look like early crude photography with pictures that I've seen taken on reservations, making the natives look as they really were. Their portrayals are far more complex and realistic, with the characterizations not either one-dimensionally good or savagely bad. In fact, the two villains of the film (Woods and James Griffith) are Caucasian, and in the end, a hearing is overseen by a white military officer who is aghast by the fraud perpetuated on the Navajos and promptly provides a swift, severe retaliation. That's veteran actor William Farnum as the priest in the opening scene. I normally do not watch films like this more than once, but I would gladly watch a restored print in the original Cnecolor if it became available.
This is a very unique Western in the sense that it takes place on a Navajo reservation and deals with the attempts to defraud them and other prejudices they faced. This was filmed in Cinecolor (a cheaper photography pretty cess not as vivid as Technicolor or other filming processes), but the print that I discovered was a very grainy black and white, looking almost like an early TV show. But the film is still better than expected because it shows a more realistic portrayal of the natives that you rarely see in the movies, especially in the heyday of the B Western.
The print, even as poor as it was, did have one benefit. It made itself look like early crude photography with pictures that I've seen taken on reservations, making the natives look as they really were. Their portrayals are far more complex and realistic, with the characterizations not either one-dimensionally good or savagely bad. In fact, the two villains of the film (Woods and James Griffith) are Caucasian, and in the end, a hearing is overseen by a white military officer who is aghast by the fraud perpetuated on the Navajos and promptly provides a swift, severe retaliation. That's veteran actor William Farnum as the priest in the opening scene. I normally do not watch films like this more than once, but I would gladly watch a restored print in the original Cnecolor if it became available.