The Big Picture
John Ford’s
Cheyenne Autumn
emphasizes the Native point of view.
The film cast Navajo actors to play the Cheyenne people, but they spoke the wrong language, using Navajo instead of Cheyenne.
Despite its problems,
Cheyenne Autumn
marks a change in Ford’s depiction of Native Americans and ends with the Cheyenne people being respected and shown in a positive light.
For nearly the entire history of the Western, director John Ford has been considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the genre. Films like The Searchers, Stagecoach, How the West Was Won, and My Darling Clementine, among others, have redefined and shaped the genre, and Ford has been at the forefront of it. Near the end of his career, he directed the epic 1964 Western Cheyenne Autumn, a pro-Indian picture meant to honor the titular tribe as they attempt an exodus northward to their Native lands. But this feature is also known for something else, particularly because of its ignorance towards its own use of the Navajo language.
Cheyenne Autumn
The Cheyenne, tired of broken U.S. government promises, head for their ancestral lands but a sympathetic cavalry officer is tasked to bring them back to their reservation.
Release Date December 22, 1964
Director John Ford
Cast Richard Widmark , Carroll Baker , Karl Malden , Sal Mineo
Runtime 154 minutes
Main Genre Western
Writers Mari Sandoz , James R. Webb , Howard Fast
What Is John Ford’s ‘Cheyenne Autumn’ About?
Set in the late 1870s, Cheyenne Autumn is a nearly three-hour epic presentation of the historic Northern Cheyenne Exodus, where the Native people traveled northward. It’s a horrible, bloody, and particularly intense journey and one that many of the Cheyenne didn’t survive. As one of “the most heroic marches in history,” as U.S. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson) puts it, Cheyenne Autumn emphasizes the Native point of view and is one of the most significant pro-Indian Westerns of its era. The film itself was based on Mari Sandoz’s non-fiction book of the same name, though it took some extensive liberties of its own.
Largely following Captain Thomas Archer (Richard Windmark), Quaker Deborah Wright (Carroll Baker), Chief Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalbán), and Great Chief Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland), there’s a clear tension between the Cheyenne people who have opted to return home (marking themselves as enemies of the United States) and the Calvary soldiers who are ordered to oppose them. After the Cheyenne escape from the Army in the third act, the film almost ends with an even more horrific battle that would’ve likely seen the end of the Cheyenne people. Thankfully, Captain Archer and Carl Schurz step in, and the Cheyenne are free to live in peace. In real life, they eventually settled in the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, based in Southeastern Montana, not terribly far from Yellowstone National Park.
Strangely, during the Dodge City section of the film (which is practically an intermission), Jimmy Stewart appears as none other than Western icon Wyatt Earp, alongside Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holiday. What’s odd about their inclusion is that Earp and Holiday don’t particularly add anything to the film, and never even interact with the titular people. In fact, their inclusion feels like something out of another feature altogether, stitched almost as an interlude while we wait for the main story to return. Because of detours like this, Cheyenne Autumn wasn’t particularly well-received in its time, and for good reason. In many ways, it feels over-extended and tired compared to Ford’s other features, and while the subject matter itself is notable, there are plenty of other pictures that do a better job with a similar premise (2017’s Hostiles being one of them).
John Ford Didn’t Hire Any Cheyenne People for ‘Cheyenne Autumn’
Image via Warner Bros.
Where the story gets particularly interesting is in the fact that John Ford cast Navajo people instead of Cheyenne to play the titular wandering Indians this time around. The fact that there were no Cheyenne people involved in the story of their people’s unprecedented migration is more than odd. In fact, Gilbert Roland and Ricardo Montalbán, who play the Cheyenne Chiefs in the film, were actually of Mexican descent, and most of the Navajo actors aren’t even playing named characters in the picture.
What’s more problematic, however, is that according to Turner Classic Movies, since many of the “Cheyenne” in the film were actually Navajo people, they’re actually speaking the Navajo language on screen rather than Cheyenne. Author Michael R. Real explores this bit of trivia further in his book Exploring Media Culture: A Guide, where he analyzes the works of Tony Hillerman, the man behind the Navajo-inspired Leaphorn & Chee novels that in turn inspired the AMC series Dark Winds. Here, Real explains what the actors actually were saying on camera, which is admittedly a bit shocking. “What the Navajo actors in the film really said in solemn tones generally concerned the size of the colonel’s penis or some similarly hilarious, disrespectful, and earthy reference,” Real notes, later emphasizing the “woodenness” of Roland and Montalbán (who themselves weren’t Navajo) in their respective performances.
“Cheyenne Autumn exhibits only an ‘outsider’s’ sense of what it means to be Native American,” Real continues. “The control of the means of production by John Ford and the Hollywood system was quite removed from the Navajo culture and power.” In some ways, this makes sense. The Navajo, of course, aren’t the subject of Cheyenne Autumn, the Cheyenne are. Because of this, the more grievous sin of this John Ford Western is that the people on which this story is based weren’t at all involved in the production. No wonder the Navajo actors weren’t afraid to speak obscenities on camera to the primarily English-speaking audience that wouldn’t understand a word coming from their mouths.
But just because English-speaking audiences didn’t know the words being said, didn’t mean they didn’t want to. Over the years, fans of Cheyenne Autumn, or at least the Navajo influence on the picture, hoped to recover the actual dialogue spoken on screen, but it’s thus far been impossible to find any complete translations online. However, back in 2017, one fan in particular started a Kickstarter with the sole intent of showing the film to a host of Navajo elders who would then translate the words spoken on screen into modern English. Apparently, he had everything lined up and only needed the funds to pay for his connection’s travel to get in touch with the elders. Ultimately, the project didn’t generate enough interest and fizzled out, with much of the Navajo dialogue spoken in Cheyenne Autumn still unknown.
John Ford Portrays Native Americans Differently in ‘Cheyenne Autumn’
Image via Warner Bros.
From early on in John Ford’s career, the Western director (who directed more than Westerns, by the way) often used Native Americans as his unseen or unnamed antagonists. Stagecoach is a wonderful example of this, as Geronimo and his Apache forces pursue our heroes across the American West, always an unseen threat to the Ringo Kid (John Wayne) and his fellow passengers. Likewise, The Searchers portrays the Commanche people in a somewhat negative light as they abduct Ethan Edwards’ (Wayne again) niece and “corrupt” her into one of their own. Ethan’s own hatred of the Indian peoples presents itself as a virtue for the majority of the picture, and though it’s challenged in the end, feels almost like Ford’s own wrestling with the idea.
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Of course, not every Western John Ford made prior to Cheyenne Autumn was particularly anti-Indian. Fort Apache, for instance, is often considered one of the very first pro-Indian Westerns, predating even James Stewart’s Broken Arrow. But this wasn’t exactly the norm for the director, who more often than not featured Native Americans in an antagonistic light. It’s fitting then that Cheyenne Autumn would mark the end of Ford’s career, and the picture itself seems to be almost an apology for his earlier depictions of Native peoples. “Ford films Native American ways with devotion and respect,” noted The New Yorker following the film’s release. “While also maintaining deep admiration for the military, he sets its code of obedience under a higher morality and the authority of civilian government.”
Despite being three decades (or an entire generation) away, Cheyenne Autumn almost feels like a precursor to movies like Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves, which are meant to take an honest and deep look at Native American cultures. While Costner’s feature does significantly better at painting an accurate picture of the Sioux people than Ford does with the Cheyenne, it’s easy to see the connections between them. They each follow a single Union official as he attempts to bridge the gap between the United States and the opposing Native tribes. Though he first stands against the tribal people, he learns to care for them deeply, particularly because of a white woman whom he loves who has also inserted herself within the tribe.
‘Cheyenne Autumn’ Was John Ford’s Last Western
Cheyenne Autumn was one of the last films that John Ford ever directed. Despite some positive responses, the film (which turned out to be his final Western) was largely panned by critics. “Cheyenne Autumn is a rambling, episodic account of a reputedly little-known historic Cheyenne Indian migration,” wrote Variety back in 1964. “Somewhere in the telling, the original premise of the Mari Sandoz novel is lost sight of in a wholesale insertion of extraneous incidents which bear little or no relation to the subject.” Unfortunately, some of these criticisms are valid (especially concerning the Wyatt Earp segment), and significantly detracted from Ford’s arguably noble vision.
But considering this is Ford’s swan song to the genre (he only made 7 Women, Young Cassidy, and Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend afterward), he seems to want to use his final thoughts on the Western as a way to redeem his general perception of Native Americans. Instead of the usual white cowboy wandering off into the sunset, Ford flips the script with his final Western and puts the Cheyenne people on top, with Little Wolf and his wife riding off into their new lands. Given the way Ford’s pictures usually go, it’s a particularly interesting ending that notes the director’s apparent willingness (and possibly hopefulness) to see a real change in the West and desire to see people like the Cheyenne honored instead of feared or mistreated. John Ford might’ve cast Navajo actors who used their language barrier to poke fun at the people in charge, but maybe that too is an important reflection that Cheyenne Autumn casts on the Western genre, which can sometimes turn Native American people into caricatures rather than seeking to better understand them.
Cheyenne Autumn is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
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