I ain't no swamp running n_____, I'm a man: Sergeant Rutledge

Poster for Sergeant Rutledge.  Note that Woody Strode's billing is eeny teeny.

I promised one final look at a John Ford movie sans John Wayne, and I chose Sergeant Rutledge.   It's a film unlike many of Ford's movies in that it examines a serious issue, racial prejudice. Embedded in the context of a more comfortable genre, the western, and produced smack in the middle of the civil rights era, he hits the right notes.  While Ford's effort is flawed, it is a good effort.  

Sergeant Rutledge quiets Mary Beecher as Apache warriors prowl nearby.

This 1960 courtroom drama is told through flashbacks and implicates highly respected Sergeant Braxton Rutledge (Woody Strode) in the 9th (colored) U.S. Cavalry Regiment in murder and rape.  These being the times they were, little consideration is given for the truth, and Rutledge, convinced he'll be lynched by the public flees Fort Linton.  At the same moment as the murder, young Apache warriors bolt the neighboring reservation and begin a reign of terror on nearby ranches.

A courtroom scene with Hunter as Cantrell, Strode as Rutledge and Young as Shattuck.

The story continues as Rutledge is captured by his commanding officer Lt. Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter).  When he rides out to assist a mortally wounded comrade, Rutledge sees his opportunity to escape, and he rides off only to uncover an Apache ambush set for his fellow troopers.  Rutledge returns to save his men, and ride back to the courtroom. The courtroom interactions between Cantrell as Rutledge's defense counsel and Capt. Shattuck (Carleton Young) as the prosecutor are steeped in the innuendo of racial bigotry.  It must have seemed quite unsettling for audiences at the time of the movie's release.  When Shattuck accuses Rutledge of returning to his unit to warn them of the Apache ambush Rutledge's response froze my blood:

It was because the Ninth Cavalry was my home, my real freedom, and my self-respect, and the way I was desertin' it, I wasn't . . . nuthin' worse than a swamp-runnin' nigger, and I ain't that! Do you hear me? I'm a man!

The story ends very Perry Mason-like when the post's sutler confesses to the crime, and Sergeant Rutledge is seen riding off with his command to the melody of "Captain Buffalo."

Jeffrey Hunter as Lt. Cantrell, Rutledge's defender.  Yawn.

 Of all the performances, Strode's is the most impressive.  He gives Rutledge dignity and respect, as well as a knowledge of how the world worked in 1880's.  There is no fawning, no victimhood. Sergeant Rutledge is indeed a man.  The other performances are less impressive.  Jeffrey Hunter is okay as Cantrell, but doesn't leave a lasting impression.  Constance Tower as Mary Beecher is just eye candy.  The most interesting supporting performance is by 76-year old Billie Burke as Cordelia Fosgate, wife of the president of court martial.  One can't have too much of Glinda the Good Witch.

Filmed in Monument Valley, the movie is beautiful.  Unfortunately it can't disguise some of its problems.  This is a serious movie with a serious theme.  Yet, Ford persisted in playing a good deal of it for laughs.  Lots of drinking jokes, lots of silly patter between the members of the court-martial are unfunny and unnecessary.  The lame attempt at romance between Cantrell and Beecher goes nowhere and is uninteresting.  The ending in which the true criminal is revealed feels tacked on and unsatisfying.  The portrayal of some of the black cavalrymen seems stereotyped and one dimensional. 

 Yet, for all that, Ford took on an important topic for its time.  He portrayed a subject, African Americans in the frontier U.S. Army which few people knew about in 1960.  Ford took Rutledge's character and together with Strode gave him dimension.  This is a difficult DVD to find.  It is only available as part of the John Ford Collection, but it is definitely worth your time.

My Favorite Movies: The Quiet Man

Movie poster from the Quiet Man

My attachment to The Quiet Man goes back a long way.  I remember watching this as a boy on a black and white set on a Saturday afternoon.  I miss those days of free television with lots of movie re-broadcasts.  My mother, with her father a native of County Cork, never let us forget we were Irish, and there is something charming about this John Ford/John Wayne collaboration.  It earned Ford an Oscar for best director, as well as another for best cinematography, and another five nominations.  The Quiet Man was another successful pairing for Wayne with co-star Maureen O'Hara. 

Sean Thornton (Wayne)  spies "White of Morn," the family home for the first time with Michelene Oge Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald)

Made in 1952, Wayne plays Sean Thornton of Pittsburgh who has returned to the old family home in Inishfree. A negotiation with the wealthy Widow Tillane (Mildred Natwick)  lands Thornton his home "White of Morn" but sparks conflict with landowner and neighbor Redwill Danaher (Victor McLaglen) who also covets this land.  The animosity deepens when Thornton is smitten with Danaher's lovely sister Mary Kate (O'Hara.)  Danaher initially rebuffs Thornton's advances, but falls for a scheme orchestrated by the local matchmaker (Barry Fitzgerald) and supported by the village priest (Ward Bond.)  Though Sean and Mary Kate were wed, Squire Danaher's anger at his deception denies them Mary Kate's "fortune," which leads the couple to all kinds of ill will. Thornton's secret is revealed.  He is "Trooper" Thorn, a boxer in America who killed another fighter in the ring.  Though an accident, Thornton was never able to forgive himself, and fears fighting any man, even the deserving Danaher.  The climax of the movie comes on a knock-down drag-out display fistfight between Thornton and Danaher that seems to range across the entire county.

Thornton and Flynn ask Danaher's (Victor McLaglen)  permission to marry his sister, as Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara) looks on hopefully

On so many levels this is an interesting movie.  The story is complex with subplots.  Thornton's secret.  Danaher's pursuit of the Widow Tillane.  The conflict of customs between America and Ireland.  Mary Kate's need to possess her fortune in her own right.  However the best aspect of the movie are all the interesting and quirky characters.  McLaglen is fabulous as Danaher, and Bond is wonderful as Father Lonergan.  Another standout is Arthur Shields as the Reverend Mr. Playfair and Eileen Crowe as his wife.  The most charming of the cast is Fitzgerald as Michelene Og Flynn, the village matchmaker, who is as elfin and Irish as can be.  O'Hara is smart, tough and beautiful, a perfect match for Wayne's brooding physical presence and conflicted combative character.

The fight of the century ends suddenly here, at Cohan's Pub

The Quiet Men, from left: Francis Ford, John Wayne Barry Fitzgerald (front), Victor McLaglen, John Ford (director.)  McLaglen was nominated for a best supporting Oscar for his portrayal of Redwill Danaher.

There are many memorable scenes. One of my favorites is the horse race for the Inishfree Cup.  The women of Inishfree offer their bonnets as favors for the finishers.  Six racers, seven bonnets.  One is left at the end--you guessed--it Mary Kate, while the winner, Thornton carries off Tillane's bonnet, much to the chagrin of Danaher.  Lots of pouting and the plot to free Mary Kate from her brother's house is hatched.  The best part of the movie is the ending fight between Thornton and Danaher.  Beginning with Thornton retrieving Mary Kate from the Dublin train, dragging her back to her brother's house and the ensuing melee, the show lasts about fifteen minutes.  It ends at Cohan's pub when Thornton says two simple lines-"Barkeep, bar towel.  What time is it?" and with the response blasts Danaher through the pub door as the tour buses line up to see the fight of the century. 

It's a fun movie, a feel good movie, that portrays Ireland of the 50's as a paradise that it almost certainly was not.  It was likely much closer to Angela's Ashes than the Quiet Man.  Nevertheless, it is an interesting story with quirky characters and great performances.  I don't ask for much more.

My Favorite Movies: Coming to Grips with John Wayne and John Ford

It seems just yesterday my old college roommate Steve McLellan and I heard the news that John Wayne was dead. It was the week before my wedding, and we'd heard he was quite ill.  When he died, it somehow didn't have quite the same impact that Keith Moon's suicide had on us earlier in the year That was well over thirty years ago, and as all young folks growing up in the late 70's, we just didn't understand what all the fuss was about.  Star Wars was popular and The Rocky Horror Picture Show was all the rage.  John Wayne, pah!

Wayne played the lead in over 130 movies in a 50 year career (1926-1976.)  Let's be clear, the films of John Wayne will never pass for high art, nor do they conform well to our own time of cultural empowerment and political correctness, but the man made some movies I really enjoy, and like them or not I'd like to share a few with you anyway.

If you're not a John Wayne fan or don't know his movies well, there's good John Wayne, there's bad John Wayne and there's godawful John Wayne.  I tend to avoid a lot of the movies he did in the 60's that he produced and directed himself, and definitely stay away from his B-list cowboy movies prior to Stagecoach.  Some are better than others, but most are pretty boring shoot'em ups with the Duke bringing the heat down on some nasty bad guy.  No, my favorites tend to be movies he teamed up to make with John Ford.

John Wayne as Captain Nathan Brittles in the 1949 movie She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

John Ford directed over 140 movies between 1917-1966, from silent movies to the large westerns he is perhaps best known for.  In many respects Ford was considered the father of American movies, with his emphasis on narrative, location shooting, and the long shot of the individual character against a striking background.  He won six Best Director, and is credited for his influence by directors as diverse as Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa and Martin Scorcese.  Ford is widely credited for providing John Wayne his breakthrough in the 1939 western Stagecoach in which Wayne starred as the Ringo Kid.

John Ford won four Best Director Oscars and two more for his work as a documentary filmmaker during World War II

They went on to work together in dozens of movies, and two of them are my favorites, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and The Quiet Man.  Though Wayne was highly regarded for his portrayal of Ethan Edwards in another Ford movie, The Searchers, and won an academy award for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in the 1969 version of True Grit, my favorite Wayne characters are Captain Nathan Brittles from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the American boxer with a secret, Sean Thornton from The Quiet Man, and the aging gunslinger, J.B. Books, in The Shootist, looking for a quiet place to die.  In the coming days I'll review each of these movies.  In addition, I'll take a look at one of Ford's movies without Wayne, Sergeant Rutledge.