Run of the Arrow

"Maybe a broken neck is the best answer for what ails you."

Samuel Fuller's Run of the Arrow (1957) is a definite oddity. Anticipating A Man Called Horse and Dances With Wolves, it shows a man so disillusioned with white society he prefers the company of Indians. Unlike those films, it's less about Indian culture sullied by than one man's failure to fit in.
Confederate soldier O'Meara (Rod Steiger) refuses to surrender after Appomattox. Heading west, O'Meara joins the Sioux under Red Cloud (Frank DeKova), resisting white encroachment. O'Meara integrates into Sioux society, proving himself through the titular ritual and taking a native wife (Sarita Montiel). Reality intrudes when Union cavalrymen arrive, including Lt. Driscoll (Ralph Meeker), who shares a past with O'Meara. With war imminent, O'Meara must choose between white and Sioux.
Violent, pulpy and occasionally surreal, Run of the Arrow is typical Sam Fuller. He's fascinated by Indian barbarism, namely the titular challenge, where O'Meara and a colleague (Jay C. Flippen) must outrun Sioux warriors on foot. This provides a key set piece, with Fuller brilliantly intercutting expansive landscape and close-ups of O'Meara's feet. The battle scenes are remarkably graphic; Run of the Arrow features Hollywood's first use of squibs. But we remember stranger moments like Silent Tongue, the mute Sioux boy, sinking into quicksand while playing a harmonica.
Fuller often makes social statements and Arrow is no exception, though its message seems confused. O'Meara's explicitly identified with modern segregationists, rejecting racial equality in pursuance of a "free, white and Christian" society. In one scene he's dressed down by a Union captain (Brian Keith) who chides him for resisting progress. "The South didn't die at Appomattox," he chides; "the United States was born." An end title helpfully requests that viewers "write the end of this story."
Arrow subverts the "Noble Savage" trope, tying the Sioux to Confederate renegade O'Meara. In reality O'Meara never accepts the Sioux lifestyle, remaining a Christian and hesitating to kill whites; only their defiance of the American government throws them together. Still, this complicates Fuller's equation. Is Federal expansion equally noble displacing Indians or exterminating Jim Crow? Are Red Cloud and Orval Faubus comparable reactionaries? One longs for Broken Arrow's earnest liberalism, or even Arrowhead's Bircher paranoia.
Rod Steiger does fine work, despite his bizarre Dixie Irish brogue. Never an ideal Westerner, Steiger's twisted intensity suits O'Meara well, selling his defiance and personal conflict as a man out of step with reality. Brian Keith (The Wind and the Lion) makes a good foil, but Ralph Meeker's (The Dirty Dozen) too much the sneering heel. Meeker's given an unlikely history with O'Meara that doesn't amount to anything. Olive Carey (The Searchers) gets a scene-stealing bit as O'Meara's mother.
Unsurprisingly, Run of the Arrow treats us to white "ethnics" in red face: Charles Bronson as the hulking Blue Buffalo, Frank DeKova rehearsing for F Troop, Jay C. Flippen as a chatty turncoat. Credit these actors for skirting stereotypes. Less successful is Sarita Montiel (Vera Cruz), spouting inane koans in Angie Dickinson's voice. Pocahontas she ain't.
Run of the Arrow's loose plotting and slapdash speechmaking prevent it from becoming a classic. It's still worth watching for Fuller's baroque style and off-the-wall elements, which salvage it from being another mediocre romp with friendly Indians.