Great Western, but it came before its time.

This revisionist western was received very poorly by audiences in 1956 due to its negative portrayal of buffalo hunting, showing the bad treatment of Indians, and scenes of buffalo actually being shot in a government herd cull.

The novel it was based on also got a raw deal. It had been selected as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1955 but then someone who was 'very important' said William Faulkner was due for a win and the choice of the judges was vetoed in favor of one of Faulkner's worst novels.

I think this film would have done much better if it was released in about 1970 or so, at the time of like-minded movies like Little Big Man, Soldier Blue and A Man Called Horse. The major problem with this would have been no Debra Paget, as she was retired by then.

If this was made in 1970 I would have liked to see Gregory Peck in the 'good guy' Stewart Granger role, Warren Oates in the 'bad guy' Robert Taylor role, Lee Marvin in the 'drunk sidekick' Lloyd Nolan role, Robert Walker Jr. in the Russ Tamblyn 'kid' role and in the Debra Paget role of the Indian girl, perhaps the Asian actress, Aimee Eccles, who played the Cheyenne wife of Jack Crabb in Little Big Man. I can't think of any young actual Native American actresses who were working in 1970.