Soldier Blue (1970) User Reviews

Still Upsetting After Three Decades, But Now It's Uncut

[virek213 · 7/10 · 6 July 2001]

Without question, in its unedited form, SOLDIER BLUE is one of the most upsetting and violent films of all times, perhaps even THE most violent. This remains so, even though the film was released way back in 1970. And up until late 2006, you could only see an uncut version of this film via imports. Lionsgate Video, however, has rectified this.

Basically a fictional re-enactment of the infamous 1864 Sand Creek massacre in Colorado by the U.S. Cavalry on a Cheyenne Indian village and the events that lead up to it, but actually based on Theodore V. Olsen's novel "Arrow In The Sun", SOLDIER BLUE, directed by Ralph Nelson (of CHARLY and LILIES OF THE FIELD fame), stars Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss as, respectively, a Cheyenne-raised white woman and a disenfranchised U.S. Cavalry officer who have survived a savage attack by Cheyenne Indians on an Army payroll wagon train and are forced to be together to survive, even as they disagree starkly on who is right in the white man-versus-Indian conflict. Eventually, of course, they start to fall in love. This gives a story that otherwise might be interpreted as an arguably pretentious attempt to link the Cavalry's atrocities of the past to the modern Army's behavior in Vietnam a certain amount of emotional validity. But it also leaves the viewer heavily unprepared for the incredibly horrific massacre that climaxes the film.

Even today, this massacre, a sequence of unbelievably extreme violence that involves hacked body parts, rape, and infinite bloodshed, makes SOLDIER BLUE very difficult for viewers to watch. In fact, when the film was re-released in 1974, much of that bloodshed was chopped off so the film could somehow get a 'PG' rating; it is that version that American viewers have had to put up with on video until late 2006. Apart from the brutal nature of that final sequence, the film's depiction of the Army as a bunch of bloodthirsty savages does not make SOLDIER BLUE an easy film to agree with--and contrary to what a previous reviewer said, I don't think it even comes close to being a politically correct movie. It may not be a masterpiece, the way THE WILD BUNCH or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN were (and they too were incredibly ferocious in terms of violence). But it's good that SOLDIER BLUE has finally made it to DVD in its original uncut form so that people can now judge its validity in whole, regardless of its politics or, even more, its enormously graphic finale. It is a film that HAS to be seen today.

Nice western film with great loads of blood and gore

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 27 April 2005]

The movie talks a soldier (Peter Strauss) and a woman (Candice Bergen) abducted by Indians and now freed . Later on , they are attacked and will have to face off deal of dangers and taking on a cutthroat weapons smuggler (Donald Plesence) until a final massacre .

In this Vietnam-era Western there are noisy action , shootouts , fights , a love story , extraordinary landscapes and a big deal of gratuitous violence . The film is based on real deeds regarding ¨Sand Creek massacre¨ and there are some remembrance about Vietnam killings and hardship on racial themes by that time . The highlight of the movie , of course , is the Cheyenne massacre with lots of blood and guts , it results to be an authentic butchery and was censured , prohibited , cut , and severely trimmed in some countries . The motion picture is classified ¨R¨ for the cruel murders and isn't apt for little boys, neither squeamish . The violence of its Indian slaughters , in which seemingly every part of the bodies were slice off and blood fountained all over the screen , brought worldwide queues and much criticism in the newspapers . The picture achieved too much success , in spite of violence and crude theme and excessive final brutality . The ending confrontation amongst the cavalry and the hapless Cheyennes is breathtaking and overwhelming.

Peter Strauss interpretation as a naive and innocent ¨Soldier Blue¨ is top notch and Candice Bergen as a reckless and impulsive girl is magnificent . Robert Hauser's cinematography is excellent , the landscapes are glittering and spectacular . Roy Budd's musical score is atmospheric and imaginative . The motion picture is well directed by Ralph Nelson though he develops an extreme ¨exploitation violence¨ in the final episode . Nelson traveled around the world to defend the film , his biggest box-office hit , insisting that the violence was utterly necessary and it was sincerely meant . Rating : Good , though very criticized for gory scenes . Well Catching , 'a must see' for action-starved Indian Western buffs who will enjoy the action and strong themes .

One Of The Most Bizarre Movies To Be Made By An American Studio

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 12 September 2005]

I recall sometime in the late 1970s a film called SOLDIER BLUE being broadcast on ITV . It was on past my bedtime so unfortunately I never saw it but I distinctly remember my parents discussing it the next day and how shaken they were by the amount of violence the movie used in showing a massacre against the Indians at the end . As years passed I have heard how this movie has become a cult classic and how it was an allegory on American involvement in South East Asia and being something of a fan of this type of movie I looked forward to seeing it . Unfortunately it's not a film that appears on the TV schedules and when the BBC broadcast it tonight I think this was the first time it'd been broadcast since my parents saw it nearly 30 years ago

I must confess while I was watching it I was in something of a state of shock , not so much because of the violence ( I'll come to that in a moment ) but because it's a truly bizarre movie . You can just imagine Joseph Levine scratching his chin while reading several scripts on his desk featuring different genres and deciding that he's going to make a movie featuring bits and pieces from all of them so we have

1 ) A love story between two protagonists where opposites attract

2 ) A couple hiking in the great outdoors being kidnapped by a sadistic thug and having to run for their lives

3 ) A standard western that borrows ideas from THE SEARCHERS

4 ) An ( Anti) Vietnam war movie that's the perfect antidote to THE GREEN BERETS

All of these are incorporated into SOLDIER BLUE and I'm afraid that it doesn't really work . Can you believe that if this was an unsolicited script arriving on someone's desk that it would be produced ? It's like watching clips from several movies edited together , edited together very well I might add , but still edited from other movies . Thus we see a calvary platoon massacred early into the film while the next hour is devoted to two people wandering around the wilderness not liking one another but finding themselves falling in love . These scenes are like watching a star vehicle for Rock Hudson and Doris Day if you ignore the leftist / rightist diatribes

As for the violence , it's probably as violent as the stuff Peckinpah was doing at the time with slow motion death scenes where people spurt blood , a cinematic violence that hasn't dated very well in the 21st Century since it appears clichéd . There is one slight difference and that is director Ralph Nelson doesn't shy away from showing innocent children getting shot down , even in 2005 the massacre scene still carries an impact and the impact would have been bigger still if the Indians hadn't been shown massacring a Calvary unit earlier , but I guess when discussing what was happening in 'Nam the movie wants to have its cake and eat it

It's impossible not to discuss SOLDIER BLUE without mentioning Candice Bergen as Cresta . Men of a certain age have confessed how their ideal woman would be Bergen in this movie and I can certainly see their point , it's not just Bergin's physical presence but the written character too . Obviously Cresta is a total anachronism but she's a very memorable strong woman , a sort of hippy chick fused with Emma Peel and along with the Indian massacre Cresta is what people remember most about the movie . Peter Strauss as Honus seems a bit too old for the role and the part should have gone to a younger actor while Donald Pleasence seems to have wandered in from another movie

This is a movie that I have wanted to see since I heard about it many years ago and after seeing SOLDIER BLUE I still don't know what to make of it . It's certainly a very strange film that's heavy handed and got perhaps too much to say for itself . It's like watching a Walt Disney movie spliced with an exploitation movie , in short it's one of the most bizarre movies a Hollywood studio has produced and that alone makes it worth watching

An ending that shows no mercy to the viewer.

[drfaustus58 · 20 August 2002]

I saw "Soldier Blue" quite recently on British Television. About 2 hours before it was aired, the BBC did a program on George Armstrong Custer, which dispelled the story of a 'Last Stand' using archaeological evidence: The Seventh cavalry made a cowardly dash for it when the Indians attacked. Unfortunately(or fortunately depending on your point of view) the cavalry troopers and Custer were swarmed by Indians as they attempted to escape. Complete disorder swelled through the ranks of troopers. The last stand was more of a chaotic melee than a heroic action. Moreover the Indians were better armed, using repeating rifles whereas the Cavalry were using single shot Springfield carbines. My boyhood notion of Little Big Horn was shattered within a matter of minutes. I lost so much respect for Errol Flynn!!! But nothing, absolutely nothing could prepare me for what was to come later on that night. My watching Soldier Blue coincided with the climax of the tragedy in Soham, England. Therefore I was already upset.

The haunting opening song is a portent of a terrible tragedy. I got the feeling that something truly horrific was going to happen. It's a song that I won't forget for a long time. The film's two protaganists(Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss, a US cavalry trooper), escape from Indians who have attacked an Army wagon train(carrying amongst other things The soldiers wages). The subsequent storyline lulled me into a false sense of security. Bergen and Strauss begin to fall in love whilst deliberating about the plight of the Indians (Bergen feels they have been mistreated. She knows this. She had lived with Cheyenne Indians for 2 years. Strauss feels differently. His naivety does show...Great acting!!Well done Peter!). Actually I got very bored with this, thinking that the movie was turning into one of those slushy 'opposites attract' stories. But the introduction of Donald Pleasance as the sadistic gunrunner changed that. Strauss and Bergen are abducted by him. This point in the movie is important. I feel the tone begins to change. Those haunting lyrics returned to my head as I watched Bergen and Strauss attempting to escape from their abductor(respite is given by the sight of Candices' wonderful rear end). Strauss, being a soldier is obliged to burn the gunrunners wagon. The gunrunner has a large number of guns which he is going to sell to the Cheyenne indians. Bergen tries to stop him, but fails. The two escape and hide out in a cave. Bergen then leaves Strauss, possibly feeling that their relationship can come to nothing as she's due to marry another Soldier. She's found by cavalry scouts and brought back to their camp. Here she learns that the Cavalry troop are about to attack a Cheyenne village a few miles away. Coincidentally the village is the one she lived in for 2 years. She leaves the cavalry troop and heads straight for the village, hoping to warn them of the pending attack. This leads us to the finale. I won't describe it as I think it is beyond me. I don't think I can describe the effect it had on me either. Before this I had some idea of how the American Indians had been treated by the Europeans. The documentary on the ill fated Custer and his troop had only hinted at this type of treatment, and of course increased my capacity for cynicism.

The finale of Soldier Blue confirmed what that haunting song had hinted at. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. I was shocked beyond belief, and as an avid movie fan I have seen some shocking movies. Even the finale in "Don't Look now" comes nowhere near this. The director should be credited. He rams his point home (although some people may feel a little exploited). Forget all that nonsense about this movie referring to the My Lai atrocities in Vietnam. It's a poignant testament to human innocence(The Indians) and a disturbing testament to a successful act of genocide. Namely the systematic destruction of the native Americans.

I recommend this movie. Although it's not for everyone. The plot line rambles a bit at times. The photography is beautiful. Although some might think it typically 1960's. The acting is top notch. But it's NOT for the squeamish or faint hearted. Keep well away from this movie regardless of the fact that you bore the brunt of the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

Anti-US military Western with Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen

[Wuchakk · 7/10 · 8 September 2016]

Released in 1970 and directed by Ralph Nelson, "Soldier Blue" is a Western starring Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen as a soldier and Native sympathizer, the only two survivors of a cavalry group Massacred by the Cheyenne. As they travel together to get back to the soldier's unit he struggles with his affection for the woman and a revulsion for her anti-US government outlook. Then he sees the awful truth.

This controversial Western showcases the atrocities of the US Army against Native Americans wherein the average US Cavalry solder is depicted as a shifty, droop-eyed, unwashed, stupid cracker idiot with flies buzzing around his head. The opening Indian attack is set in order to align the audience's sympathies with Honus (Strauss, the 'Soldier Blue' of the title), so that the viewer travels on the same journey as him, starting by regarding the Indians as murderous barbarians, and ending up forced to confront the idea that maybe his kin are just as barbaric when the occasion is 'right' (or, should I say, wrong).

The final massacre is shocking, but hampered by the film's insistence on stacking the deck so completely in terms of depicting the US military as savages dripping with ee-vil. In other words, it loses its impact because it's so overdone.

In reality, utterly barbaric attacks applied to both uncivilized Natives and the civilized Europeans, but more so with the former, which is documented. Since the 60s-70s there has been an overemphasis on the injustices committed by the US Army or settlers and we get a handful of examples: Wounded Knee, Bear River and Sand Creek (the latter being what "Soldier Blue" is based on). Yet we never hear the other side of what caused these events nor do we hear of the atrocities of Natives committed against New Americans. For instance, we never hear of the Dakota "War" of 1862 (Santee Sioux went on the war path and murdered between 600-800 white settlers, which constituted the largest death toll inflicted upon American civilians by an enemy force until 9/11), The Ward Massacre, The Nez Perce uprising which killed dozens of settlers in Idaho and Wyoming, and the Massacre at Fort Mims. We never hear of the countless innocent settlers who were murdered by roaming bands of young "warriors": While a chief was signing a peace treaty on the tribe's behalf they were out robbing, raping and murdering.

I'm just saying that it's easy to be pro-Native sitting on the comfort of your sofa, but not so much when you and your loved ones are threatened with torture & slaughter.

The Europeans wanted the Native's land and resources while the Indians wanted the technology of the Europeans. Both sides used treaties to make peace while still trying to get what they wanted when war was too expensive. Both sides made war when they felt no other option.

I love Native American culture, but the whitewashing of Native atrocities and this revisionist history stuff is dishonest and unbalanced. "Soldier Blue" is guilty of this but, as a movie, it's entertaining and its message is necessary in light of all the movies that depict Indians as sub-human savages to be gunned down on the spot.

The film runs 114 minutes and was shot in Mexico.

GRADE: B

A Journey Indeed

[Tweetienator · 7/10 · 3 June 2022]

What starts as a rather funny journey of Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen teasing and fighting each other, ends in a massacre of an Indian village shown in - for that time - very graphical and violent pictures, even a little gore. I like the movie because of the chemistry between both actors and find the mix of comedy and cruel war scenes not out of order - Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman, coincidentally also published in 1970, got a similar mix. I guess the absurdity of war, the Vietnam War still raging, was one of the main impulses to make such a blend - how should one survive such mad times and still safe his soul without humor? Soldier Blue: funny and sad at the same time.

One of Cinema's greatest westerns

[formidible-441-172674 · 9/10 · 22 August 2020]

I still remember seeing this in the cinema at barely legal age. It profoundly affected me. From what starts as an ordinary western, ends in scenes so shocking it left me dumbfounded. But this really was how the west was won - in blood and slaughter. For me this was an awakening to the power of cinema in general and its power to both shock, educate, entertain and bewilder. This is not a film you will forget easily. Fifty years later it still resonates.

it seems average and even glib, but then WHAM, the end is intense

[secondtake · 7/10 · 14 January 2014]

Soldier Blue (1970)

Make no mistake, this is no masterpiece. But it reveals a lot about movies of the period, and about attitudes toward Native Americans and the Wild West. It's not terrible, and in some ways it's so disturbing by the end it makes a rare point. If you like these themes, and can tolerate some awkward and awful social politics you'll get something from it.

The whole movie begins with the acting of television (and the director, Ralph Nelson, is mainly a television guy) but it's completely widescreen, bright color, cinema stuff, and it grows into that over time. The star is a surprise, in a way, Candice Bergen, still alive and well and acting fifty years after her debut a few years before this movie. She's known for a range of roles, from a secondary role in "Carnal Knowledge" to the defining "Murphy Brown" for t.v. She plays a tough woman, smarter and stronger than the man she is forced to go through the wilderness with after surviving an Indian attack. And she's way more contemporary than you might expect from other sources and movies of the same period.

To be sure, this is a comedy overall. This relieves it of a lot of criticism about its unrealistic tone and pace. But this comic element is layered with a brutality and frankly honest depiction of the time that is valuable. And the way it is filmed, with lots of long lens shots from a far distance zooming in on the main characters, is interesting, too. In all, it's a better film in the details than in the overall effect.

If Bergen is kind of wonderful (even if her role is anachronistic), the male lead played by Peter Strauss is strained. He tries to be charming and yet comes off goofy. Yes, this is a comedy, but he lacks some kind of depth that we need to go along with his silliness. Ultimately this is a lighthearted movie, but it also has a surprisingly serious edge which takes two angles. One is the way we see Native Americans. Bergen's open sympathy is clearly where we are meant to side, and it is pitted against the brutality and narrow-mindedness of the calvary.

The other is the military aspects, which seem to be a reflection on the U.S. military of the time, 1970—which means Vietnam. The senselessness of the killing and the blind military attitudes seem, at least on the surface, to parallel popular attitudes against American involvement in the Vietnam War. It was common at the time (as now) to use movies to speak to contemporary themes this way. Near the end, the flag is thrown to the ground in disgust and there is a long, truly brutal, and frankly disturbing battle scene.

This is not, perhaps, a deeply thought out movie, but there's more going on here than its slim reputation lets on. In a way, the light silliness of the first hour and a half makes the ending all the more horrifying and memorable. Highly disturbing to the point of almost seeming abusive. This is where the freedoms of New Hollywood are trying to still find their footing.

See this and be prepared for the last scenes, including the oddly cheerful minute or two before the epilog. Figure it out, maybe, but at least experience it openly.

Gory, ultra violent western released in USA in highly edited form as a love story.

[TM-2 · 10/10 · 18 November 1998]

As released in the UK, this movie pushed the limits of movie violence to the virtually unwatchable. People literally were sick in the theatres. I saw the movie several times in the theatres and on video. It lost none of its impact on repeated viewing. My research indicates that since the movie depicted the massacre of an Indian village, it was thought not politically correct for viewing in unedited form in the US. It does show the horror of war in a most graphic way. I have not seen anything since that is even remotely close. The highly edited US version shows the power and degree of censorship that existed in the US. To my knowledge, the movie is still not available in the US in unedited form.

Interesting revisionist western

[hugues-talbot · 7/10 · 22 July 2022]

This Western film has two storylines in it. The first concerns a romance between a volunteer cavalry soldier (the blue soldier of the title) and a blonde woman played by Candice Bergen who had lived with a tribe of Cheyenne Indians. It is interesting because the character played by Bergen is strong and independent although the filmmaking is quite exploitative.

The second storyline concerns the November 1864 massacre of Cheyenne Indians at Sand Creek, and is quite graphic and horrific, although the special effects haven't stood the test of time. It is not said that the massacre caused a public outcry, that the responsible perpetrators were tried but ultimately got away due to a Civil War amnesty. The film got me reading the Wikipedia page on the massacre, and for this alone it was worth it.

The two storylines are linked, of course. The overall result is interesting and historically minded but dated, in terms of storytelling and sometimes forced acting. A recommended watch as an influential revisionist Western film.

Proof that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

[GrandpaBunche · 3/10 · 2 January 2008]

When Sam Peckinpah's superlative THE WILD BUNCH (1969) opened the door to outrageous displays of graphic cinematic ultra-violence, it did so with a talented (if whisky-marinated) hand guiding the camera and had a compelling story with characters who had actual depth, but in no time flat there were scores of imitators that fell far from the benchmark set by Peckinpah's epic, and SOLDIER BLUE definitely falls into that category.

SOLDIER BLEW, er, BLUE tells the story of foul-mouthed New Yorker Cresta Lee (Candice Bergen) a blonde proto-hippie chick who's been "rescued" from two years of "captivity" among the Cheyenne and is now being sent to a fort where she'll be reunited with the fiancée she only wants to marry for his money. Also on board the wagon she's traveling in is a shipment of government gold, cash the Cheyenne need to buy guns with, so in short order the soldiers are wiped out and Cresta flees to the hills, accompanied by Honus Gant (Peter Strauss), the lone surviving cavalryman. Calling Gant by the snarky nickname "Soldier Blue," Cresta demonstrates that her years among the "savages" was time well spent, outstripping Gant in survival skills, common sense, and sheer balls, and over their journey toward the fort they must persevere against the elements, a band of hostile Kiowa, an unscrupulous trader — played by Donald Pleasance, here giving one of his most ridiculous performances, and that's saying something — and, in the tradition of many previous western-set romantic comedies, each other.

During the course of their misadventures the two opposites are inevitably — and predictably — attracted to each other and eventually end up getting it on — while Gant has a freshly- treated bullet wound that went clean through his leg, no less — in what was surely the only conveniently located cave for at least a twelve mile radius that wasn't filled with rattlesnakes, mountain lions, or who knows what, to say nothing of the Cheyenne, who could have done something really spiffy with such a primo apartment (there I go, thinking in NYC real estate terms again).

Realizing that their love could never flourish outside of the cave, Cresta leaves Gant and makes it to the fort by herself only to discover that the moron in charge won't spare a couple of men so they can rescue Gant; the regiment needs all available personnel to launch an attack on the nearby Cheyenne village, and once Cresta gets wind of that she slips past her obnoxiously horny hubby-to-be and makes a beeline straight to the Cheyenne to warn them of what's coming.

What happens next is what gained the film its infamy; it turns out that all the wacky misadventures and squabbling were all just a lead-in to a hideous reenactment of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, an orgy of rape, torture and general sadistic evil perpetrated in the name of "keeping the country clean," and almost forty years after its release this sequence still disturbs and nauseates for its sheer cruelty. Children are trampled beneath the hooves of charging horses or impaled on bayonets, unarmed people are beheaded — a nice effect, I have to admit — women are stripped and pawed by gangs of slavering brutes, then raped and mutilated — in one truly sickening instance a naked native woman puts up too much of a fight, so her rapist instead decides to cut off her breasts, which we thankfully only see the start of before the camera moves on to chronicle some other hideous act — and scores of innocent people are shot and dismembered, their compone nt parts impaled on pikes and waved about in victorious celebration or kept as the most ghoulish of souvenirs. No joke, this scene would instantly garner an NC-17 rating if released today, to say nothing of possibly spurring Native American interest groups to riot in the streets over the incredibly exploitative manner in which the atrocities are depicted.

I'm all in favor of westerns that don't shy away from honest portrayals of how the west was won, or stolen if truth be told, but this film has no idea of what kind of movie it wants to be; one minute it's a heavy-handed pseudo-hippy lecture about how the treatment of the natives was totally effed up (well, DUH!), then it's a light-hearted battle of the sexes farce wherein Cresta proves herself five times the man Gant is and manages to look hot in her tasty red calico poncho (with no undies), but that all goes out the window when Donald Pleasance shows up with an unintentionally (?) hilarious pair of buck-toothed dentures and our heroes must figure out how to escape from his murderous clutches in a sub-plot that goes nowhere, all of which culminates in the aforementioned apocalyptic climax. Any one of those tacks would have been okay for a coherent film, but the end result is a slapdash mess that milked the horrors of its final ten minutes for all they were worth in the film's promotion and poster imagery.

But by trying to be all things to all audiences, SOLDIER BLUE ends up as an incoherent, preachy Mulligan stew of presumably well-intentioned political correctness, but if they were going to tell the story of the Sand Creek Massacre, wouldn't it have been a good idea to have some Indian characters who were more than just walk-ons with Murphy Brown acting as their mouthpiece? We get to know absolutely nothing of the people who get wiped out solely for what appears to be a crass ploy to lure gorehound moviegoers into seeing "the most savage film in history." If you, like me, were intrigued by the provocative ads and reviews that shower almost endless praise upon it for its "daring to tell it like it was," take my word for it and let SOLDIER BLUE slowly fade into cinematic obscurity.

An unforgettable variation on the theme "How the West was won".

[aj_barros · 9/10 · 3 August 2000]

I cannot describe the impact that this film had on me. The warmth of the relationship that slowly develops between Honus and Cresta leaves you totally unprepared for the violence of the attack on the Cheyenne village and the scene hits you like a ton of bricks. I saw this film (in Europe) with my ex-wife and none of us could speak a word until we arrived back home, some 30 minutes after the film ended. An interesting variation to "How the West was Won" that I will never forget,

Good and eye opening ending but the the MOST annoying love subplot ever

[asbergersyndrom · 7/10 · 21 April 2013]

Don't want to write to much. I cant give this movie lower than 7 because it shows how the west was really won and it accuses the patriarchal Americans of today. But it had 0 entertaining potential. I tried to sympathize with the protagonist but i really couldn't. Also the plot was really slow at times and sometimes i was close to fall asleep. But like i said the ending was great and i don't have any point of criticism concerning the acting. After all it was a pretty good movie, that sometimes annoyed the **** out of me. I still recommend it for people that want to see some sad true stuff about American history. ( sorry for my bad English )

Tale of American Genocide Diluted by Milquetoast Love-Story

[zachary-jean · 4/10 · 3 December 2014]

"No! No! Don't shoot, there's a white woman down there!" (actual line)

This is another, in a long line, of movies that gives lip-service to the plight of the Native American in their movie posters (in this case by showing them all getting butchered) but fails to actually include a single Indigenous actor or get history correct. We're told that these are Cheyenne and that this is Sand Creek, but don't start looking around for Chief Black Kettle or the Arapaho because what's more important than historical accuracy is a romantic comedy between two bumbling white people.

Was there ever a time when a young man, tied and bound and fighting for his life, spent more energy attempting to use his teeth to pull Candice Bergen's skirt back down over her bottom (twice) so that when he finally got around to untying her hands he wasn't confronted with (gasp!) naked female flesh? Peter Strauss plays said young man, Honus Gant, and the best you can say about Grant is that he's completely useless. In theory he is suppose to be in the U.S. Cavalry, but that implies some level of skill and instead we're treated with a neutered fop who, when he isn't flailing comically around in the underbrush, is making rude "girls are icky" remarks to Bergen, because it's the 70s and apparently audiences loved their leading men emasculated and chauvinistic in equal measures.

I was born in 1970, the year this movie came out, and while I know about My Lai whatever emotional impact Ralph Nelson was able to make at the time by connecting this movie with that atrocity has long been lost. Indeed, emotionally, if you actually want to know about what happened at the Sand Creek massacre, I suggest reading, "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee," by Dee Brown, which also came out the same year as this movie and puts Nelson to shame. But if you're more interested in watching Candice Bergen belch and do her "Ugh! Pale Face!" routine, then Soldier Blue is the movie for you!

I look out and I see a land...

[dbdumonteil · 30 October 2002]

Don't miss the beginning at any cost.Or else you would not hear Buffy Sainte-Marie's eponymous anthemic song (Yes this is my country,young and growing free and flowing from sea to sea...).The version of the song as performed here features a string arrangement not present in the original version (which is to be found on BSM's "she used to wanna be a ballerina",vanguard).This song is as moving today as it was 30 years ago,and when the singer implores "can't you see there's another way to love her?" it gains an universal meaning(not only American natives or Vietnamese as it was mooted at the time for the movie)

The movie is famous for the slaughter which ends it.Terribly realistic ,it remains impressive today and may repel some viewers.There's a very strong use of the score during these scenes.But most of the movie deals with the initiatory journey of a young naive soldier,"educated " by a woman who was captured by the Indians and had to live with them for a while.Candice Bergen's performance came aside as a shock at the time because she used to play frail young maids (Robert Wise's "the sand pebbles";Claude Lelouch's "vivre pour vivre" ) before.But there's a problem:her character is not really believable;just compare her with the heroines with a similar fate in Ford's movies :"the searchers" ,1956;"two rode together",1961..They are far from Crista 's outspoken and politically aware character.Actually ,it seems that this woman is a contemporary woman,with Joan Baez's, Buffy Sainte-Marie's or Jane Fonda's mind (in the late sixties)..

For all that,"soldier blue " is worth watching and superbly uses wide screen :the landscapes match Sainte-Marie's song.Primarily an intimate movie,for most of the time there are only two people on the screen.Hence the contrast with the violent finale.

BERGEN'S A BEAUTY...BUT?

[shepardjessica-1 · 7/10 · 12 October 2004]

Semi-based on a real incident where American Natives got white-washed, this is basically an "exploitation" flick with pretentious acting from Peter Strauss, maniacal over-acting from Donald Pleasance (which he could be very good at), terrible acting from Ms. Bergen (who got better), and a Ralph Nelson as the director...what else can I say? One of the all-time hacks (even in his popular films the directing was the worst), but it does have an appeal that lingers. The plight of the Indians has never really been shown in that time period and having a beautiful WASP like Candice Bergen is perfect casting, but where's the script?

A 5 out of 10 (which is higher than the public and the critics gave it back in '70 (a good year for films - CATCH-22, HUSBANDS, FIVE EASY PIECES, M.A.S.H., JOE, WUSA, THE LANDLORD and many others), but if you get a chance it may touch you.

Violent and Entertaining

[ragosaal · 7/10 · 2 December 2006]

As far as I know Colonel Iverson's attack and massacre on a Cheyenne village was a true fact in American history and this is what "Soldier Blue" is about. But with that as a final target director Ralph Nelson builds a most entertaining and enjoyable western as a rookie soldier escapes through Indian territory with a white woman rescued from the Cheyennes.

Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss play convincingly the main couple and Donald Pleasence is excellent as a colorful and truly nasty gun trader. On the other hand, I don't think Jorge Rivero was a good choice for the Indian chief simply because his all-gymnasium-built-physic doesn't fit here at all, but this doesn't really hurt the picture.

The final sequences with the soldiers attacking the Indian camp is really surprising for its incredible violence and sadism, beheading included (there's a pretty similar scene in John Ford's "The Searchers" but it is not as disturbing and shocking as this one).

A very good product in the genre.

She may not be an old-fashioned girl but the film has got dated

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 15 January 2008]

The western, out of all the film genres, is probably the lease prone to becoming dated. Films like Peyton Place and Saturday Night Fever quickly become relics from a different era but the western has remained comparatively unchanged. The violence is more explicit, the set design grubbier and (presumably) truer to life, but westerns from the sixties and earlier never really appear as dated as most other genres. So it's surprising how badly this controversial Ralph Nelson oater has fared since its release in 1970.

The soundtrack – Buffy Saint Marie's track aside – doesn't help; it places the film squarely in the late sixties, as does the strident attitude of Candice Bergen's hippy chick character, a white woman back with her people after being abducted by Indians. She looks as if she would be more at home on the rooftop of some university campus than roaming the plains of the wild west. She would probably be toned down if the film were to be remade today - at times you could believe Bergen is reaching for laughs that don't really belong here. Strauss, who with this and Rich Man, Poor Man had two (unsuccessful) bites at the apple, is largely unmemorable, although his character, the naïve and prudish Honus Gent, does grow as the film progresses.

The parallels with the US involvement in the Vietnamese war are blindingly obvious, and work better when they're not being shoved in your face. All the white folk are ignorant trash, whatever their social standing might be, while the Indians – despite a savage massacre of a cavalry unit early in the film, are largely portrayed as noble savages occupying a lofty moral plain unattainable to the whites.

No review of Soldier Blue would be complete without some mention of the violence that created such a fuss back in the 70s. Some of it still packs a punch nearly 40 years later, although more for its shock value than its goriness or explicitness. An Indian boy gets a bullet through the head, a squaw is beheaded, another squaw is raped and mutilated by marauding cavalry. Some of it – the beheading particularly – look almost amateurish compared to what can be achieved today, but it must have been gut-wrenchingly shocking to an audience back then.

One of the Most Hideous Crimes of North America History

[claudio_carvalho · 10/10 · 11 October 2008]

While riding through the Cheyenne territory transporting a safe to Fort Reunion and protecting the white woman Cresta Marybelle Lee (Candice Bergen), who had lived in a Cheyenne village for two years and sympathize with them, the twenty-two men of the cavalry are attacked by the Indians. Only Cresta and the naive, idealistic and clumsy private Honus Gent (Peter Strauss) survive, and together they walk to Fort Reunion, where Cresta is supposed to meet her fiancé Lieutenant McNair (Bob Carraway). Along their journey, Honus protects Cresta against Kiowa Indians, destroys the shipment of a trader of weapons and falls in love for Cresta, but he does not believe in Cresta words that the Cheyenne village is peaceful. When the cavalry attacks, he witnesses the hideous massacre of five hundred peaceful Cheyenne, more than half composed of women and children, and realizes that Cresta was telling the truth.

In 1970, I was in my first year of high-school, and my classmates and I went at least three times to the movie theater to see this fictional story based on one of the most hideous crimes of North America history, the Sand Creek Massacre on 24 November 1864, in this awesome and controversial motion picture. This movie rewrote the Western genre, in a period of Vietnam War, "peace and love" and "Billy Jack", and for the first time the Indians were disclosed as human beings and owners of a land invaded by the "white men". Further, the director Ralph Nelson does not spare the savage action of the cavalry, depicting the rapes, scalps, decapitations, mutilations and shots with gore in very graphic and impressive images. In that occasion, I felt in love for gorgeous Candice Bergen and her natural beauty in the best role of her brilliant career. At least in Brazil, this movie has never been released on DVD; I own a very rare VHS in my collection, released by Globo Video distributor. Unfortunately the edition is cut (it seems that somebody has censored the movie), reducing the impact of the violent scenes, and has terrible mistakes in the subtitles written by Maria Tereza Nocera, who translate for example "private" by "sargento" (sergeant in Portuguese) among other "atrocities" like the Brazilian title. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "Quando é Preciso Ser Homem" ("When It Is Necessary to be Man")

Great made, but oh so politically correct...

[xlars · 7/10 · 26 February 2000]

The first politically correct western-movie ever. Made with a political propagandistic view that destroys what could have been a pure 10. In my view socialist, political correct propaganda stinks - and is used far to much by the movie-industry, which is a non-honest way of evangelization.

still get nightmares

[hk10036 · 1/10 · 14 October 2018]

I was just back from Vietnam and had my first date, it was the opening of Soldier Blue, in a theater on Hollywood Blvd. and it was uncut!, the last thing I needed after being a navy corpsman (medic) with the 1st Marines was a movie about war and graphic gore. It was brutal, bloody and way over the top. Candice was one of the loveliest creatures on the planet and lured me into a false sense of security and then was hit over the head with horror! After taking a shaken girl back home I was mugged by a gang of Mexicans and found 2 blocks away wandering in the street and brought to the emergency ward for treatment and stiches. Even after that( and having my lung ripped out in Nam) Soldier Blue was the nightmare that continued in my dreams.

Stop being politically correct !

[euricosilvestre · 8/10 · 18 May 2011]

I first saw Soldier Blue some thirty five years ago, in a cheap exploitation theatre, and i was perhaps as shocked as the makers intended. I have distinct memories of leaving the theatre with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Here was a film that not only didn't fear the displaying of extreme graphic violence, but indeed used it to the point of being exploitative.

Perhaps some of the musical score, or the paralels with the Vietnam war are now dated, but generally it remains a powerful film that also makes you think.

It is at this point that i must diverge with the great majority of the reviews here. Sometimes it seems like i have watched an entirely different film, for the film shows bluntly and brutally that the Native Americans were also capable of massacres or gang rapes, for instance. Not that it justifies genocide, but it is true nevertheless. They are not portrayed as the noble savages, that most people now like to consider them.

Take the case of the Comanches, for instance. They came to the Southern plains from the north, and displaced and almost completely exterminated the plains Apaches. For two hundred years they raided Northern Mexico, and committed genocide over the population. The point is that seeing Native Americans merely as victims does not respect the historical truth. A film such as this one can make people see the bigger picture, and stop trying to rewrite History.

A reminder that bad men do bad things and bad men with authority do worse things.

[barrelhousegutboy · 6/10 · 30 November 2018]

This movie is based on an actual event known now as the Sandy Creek Massacre. While the bulk of the movie is a growing 'romance' between a soldier and a woman 'rescued' from indians its the end of the film that made it noteworthy. The movie starts with a paymaster who has been obliged to transport a white woman who was 'rescued' from captivity by a local tribe of 'hostile' indians. The wagon train is promptly set upon by indians and wiped out but for our two love birds (Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen). Instead of retreating back to where they left from they decide to push on to their original destination. For the next 60 minutes or so the pair sort of stumble in and out of various situations each one ending with them making eyes at one another. After escaping an encounter with a white trader smuggling guns for naughty tribes, the pair separately reach a large encampment of soldiers. She steals a horse and goes back to the indians she was supposedly rescued from at the beginning of the movie while he rejoins the soldiers as a somewhat conflicted and reluctant participant. Okay now the part of the movie that made all the noise, the infamous massacre at Sand Creek. The troops form up for an artillery barrage as the chief rides out under a flag of truce to treat with them. The commander ignores this and commences the attack. Then comes the massacre itself that would make some indie slasher movies proud and finishing up with soldiers dancing around holding up various body parts including heads atop their banners. Then a solemn narrator comes on to 'share the facts' in which he claims 500 indians were slaughtered (actual number 186) followed by a script from Winter Soldier. You will notice they seem to use bright red paint for blood instead of the regular stage blood throughout the film. Okay I get it, 1970 the summer of love just happened, vietnam, ect., the 'man' is a pos, at times it felt like another Billy Jack movie. It's unfortunate the makers of the film didn't consider what actually happened as being horrific enough without sprucing it up. Overall the production value is good although the script suffers in a few places. Other than some nice wide shots of the countryside it's fairly par for the course for 70's exploitation films.

important story, bad depiction

[phj-2 · 4/10 · 25 November 2004]

This movie was extremely disappointing. Partially hailed as the first pro-Indian/anti US government movie,I expected something different.

The first thing is the anachronisms throughout the film. Here indians and whites are depicted as equals in cruelty and barbarism, which to some extent is true. But in the case of the Sand Creek massacre, the cheyenne showed no signs of hostility that could have helped triggering the massacre. First, in reality, Black Kettle was a peace-loving Chief, whose tribe stayed at Sand Creek under promise of protection of the local agent. In the beginning of the movie he is described as equally war-loving, attacking and mutilating US soldiers. Secondly, the climactic attack of the village is both totally anachronistic and horribly directed.

In addition the indians are starred by bulky italians with growling voices and heavy grain, but I guess that's all one can expect from a 1970 piece..

The rest of the story, with the mismatched couple stumbling through the wilderness, is uninteresting and distracting to the main story(or what should be the main story) 4/10