I thought I'd try another western, by none other than John Ford, since it came by late one night on the BBC. The story is rather unusual for its time, as I understand it, and the flashback motif works pretty well with that. The (sort of) running gag with the judge and his wife was wearing a little thin at some point, though.The cast members play quite well, with Wooody Strode as the stout-hearted Sergeant Rutledge as my personal favorite. Toby Michaels (uncredited), in the role of victim Lucy Dabney, was a positive ray of sunshine, which will help the viewer rooting for any angry mob out for justice. The story stays interesting enough, even if there are no real surprises, and things stay sort of goody-goody most of the time.A good 7 out of 10.

Unlike most of Director John Ford's Westerns that feature much action, "Sergeant Rutledge" is mainly a courtroom drama told mainly in flashback. The time is 1881. The gist of the story is a black Ninth US Cavalry sergeant accused in the rape and murder of a teen-aged white girl Lucy Dabney (Toby Michaels) and also the murder of her father. Woody Strode ably plays the role of the sergeant, Braxton Rutledge. When he tells his enlisted men about "white woman's business" we know he is talking about serious trouble. Rutledge's capable courtroom defender is Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter), whose job is to piece together the facts, despite constant badgering by the prosecutor, Captain Shattuck. In a highly emotional setting, Shattuck likes to make racial innuendos although he is dealing with a military court of savvy men. Complicating matters is an Apache Mescalero outbreak of hostilities. Later in the film there are two interesting engagements between the Buffalo soldiers and the Apaches. The movie is fine enough despite two drawbacks: (1) It is too long and (2) the weak trial resolution. The confession by the real murderer is over-dramatic and contrived. It is doubtful that anyone in US court has made such a strange confession, especially when the evidence was hardly circumstantial ("I had to have her!"). Perhaps the real killer had a change of conscience. But, despite its drawbacks, the film was groundbreaking in its day and still is enjoyable today. On-location shooting in Monument Valley (and Mexican Hat: note the hat rock formation in the background shots) is always spectacular. A nice shot is that of the troopers standing firm in line of battle with the Indians. "Captain Buffalo" is a moving western song about the soldiers. Lt. Cantrell explains to Mary Beecher (Constance Towers) the origin of the name "Buffalo soldiers." To stay warm in winter the black troops wore coats and hats made of Buffalo hides. As they thus appeared like buffaloes the Indians dubbed them "Buffalo soldiers." There is another origin (not mentioned in the movie): The name relates to African hair that looked to the Indians like the shaggy buffalo coat in winter. In the feature, quite a few Buffalo soldiers have speaking parts, and future Olympic gold medal winner Rafer Johnson plays an army corporal. Sgt. Skidmore (Juano Hernandez) has a funny line, "Trouble come double, sir." Rutledge has the best line in the movie when he tells Mary Beecher: "Lady, you don't know how hard I'm trying to stay alive."Billie Burke (Glenda the good witch, 1939) was at 76 years, as usual too old for her part as Cornelia, the wife of Col. Otis Wingate (53 year-old Willis Bouchey). Here she shows her real age as she is fluttered and genuinely shocked when a teen-aged girl rides her horse astride and not side-saddle (with legs close together), as some ladies did back in olden times. She is also none too pleased when white women speak to black men. She certainly played the giddy one. Postscript: Obviously after the period of the movie 65 years had to pass before four major events of the civil rights movement occurred: (1) integration of interstate commerce in 1946, (2) desegregation of the armed forces by Pres. Truman, 1948, (3) Brown vs. Topeka Board of education in 1954, and (4) the Montgomery bus strike (1955).

Sergeant Rutledge (1960) *** (out of 4) Extremely well-made and dramatic film from John Ford about a black soldier (Woody Strode) accused of killing his superior officer and raping and murdering his daughter. Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter) was the arrested officer and after spending time with the soldier agrees to defend him of the charges. In the court martial hearing we learn what really happened as Cantrell tries to save the soldier even though he admits being at the scene of the crime. SERGEANT RUTLEDGE, for some reason, never really gets mentioned when people discuss the films of John Ford and that's a shame because it's certainly one of the best films of his later period. I really enjoyed the way Ford told the story as we start off in the court room where we hear the charges and then through flashbacks we see all the events that led up to the murder and the aftermath. On a technical level Ford did a few interesting things here including how he would shoot the court scene in the dark with shadows and then cut to the flashback. This might seem like something minor but it actually has a strong impact. Ford also knew the best things to cut back to the court room scene. A lot of times when flashbacks are mixed into movies they're often done so just to move the story forward. That's not the case here because the director had to perfectly mix them with the court footage and I thought it really did a good job at building and keeping the drama from one to another. Another very strong aspect are the performances with Hunter leading the way. He never really seemed to get enough credit for his acting but the passion on display here is very powerful and I especially enjoyed the way he handled the court scenes. Constance Towers plays an important part as a witness and does a fine job as well. Billie Burke and Willis Bouchey appear in supporting roles. The real star is Strode who delivers an incredibly powerful performance and especially the scene where he must testify and finally breaks down. I don't think I'm overstating things when I say this was without question one of the strongest roles for a black actor at this period in time and Strode certainly did everything he could to make it so memorable. The actor contains a certain dignity and power that leaps off the screen. I think Ford did make one fatal mistake that really killed the film in spots and that's the horrid comic bits that are scattered throughout the film. The humor comes up in such horrid times and it's usually following something dramatic and it really kills everything that the story is trying to capture. Why Ford decided to make the humor so in your face is beyond me. With that said, the incredibly strong performances and strong story are good enough to overcome this one flaw and SERGEANT RUTLEDGE is worth viewing.

John Ford who was among many who perpetuated black racial stereotypes, notably in Judge Priest and The Sun Shines Bright, got a chance to redeem himself with the making of Sergeant Rutledge. A year before in the Robert Mitchum film, The Wonderful Country, Negro League baseball legend Satchel Paige played a black cavalry sergeant in a supporting role. But in Sergeant Rutledge the story centers around such a character and the ordeal he goes through when accused of rape and murder. The victims are his commanding officer and his daughter.The leads are Woody Strode as the accused Sergeant Braxton Rutledge and Jeffrey Hunter as the lieutenant who defends him in a court martial. The story is told in flashback through the accounts of the many witnesses at the court martial and in some of those scenes, John Ford got to revisit his beloved Monument Valley for some good old Indian fights.The murders at the fort take place simultaneously with an outbreak from the Apache reservation. Constance Towers who discovers both the results of an Indian attack and the fleeing sergeant at the railroad station, becomes both Rutledge's biggest champion and the object of Jeffrey Hunter's romantic intentions.The dilemma that Strode faced was that by so many black people, especially in the south. He comes upon the dead girl who he knows from the fort and the fact she's been sexually violated. Her father sees him together with his dead daughter and assumes the worst about him and shoots him. Strode is forced to kill him in self defense and then has to run. A white man might have stayed and explained. The father might not have fired on a white man either.Woody Strode had he come along ten to fifteen years later might well have become an action hero star like Wesley Snipes for instance. As it was here and in his small role in Spartacus as Kirk Douglas's opponent in the gladiator school he plays both with impassive dignity and strength. These became his career roles, too bad he didn't build on Sergeant Rutledge to get better parts like black actors did in the next generation.Two of John Ford's stock company regulars shine in Sergeant Rutledge, Carleton Young and Willis Bouchey. Carleton Young is Captain Shattuck, the prosecutor at the Rutledge court martial and he's not above playing the race card to win his case. Very similar in fact to William Windom's prosecutor in To Kill a Mockingbird. Unfortunately for Young, he's not dealing with a jury of uneducated sharecroppers.Willis Bouchey is the presiding judge at the court martial and besides the court martial he has to deal with Billie Burke, his flibbertigibbet of a wife. He's got a lot grief to deal with, made double by the fact that Burke is called by Young as a witness. A lot of the comic relief in Sergeant Rutledge centers around Burke. This was her farewell screen role and she went out in scatterbrained style.Jeffrey Hunter turns out to be a pretty good lawyer himself and he brings the trial to a sudden end with a bit of fast thinking on his feet worthy of Perry Mason.This very first film dealing with the black buffalo soldiers of the U.S. Cavalry is great viewing for those who like both courtroom drama and westerns. If you like both, this is your film.