Spoilers - Meeker's fate

I saw this movie as a young boy (around 6 or 7, at most) and this scene with Meeker really traumatized me.

Seeing it again, now 35+ years later, it's not terribly graphic, but the suggestion of what's being done to him coupled with his gut-wrenching screams of agony and the reactions on Steiger's face is what makes it really effective.

I'm not a fan of most of Fuller's other films...but this one, yeah, it's very good, and gets better every time I watch it. Definitely superior to "Dances with Kevin Costner's 3+ Hours of Self-Adulation."

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You'll note even Bronson's character showed remorse at the skinning, despite the squaw telling Steiger a true Siox would watch.

I think that's what makes this a great film. We have extremists even today who will make the Native American out to be perfect killers, yet also say they were innocent, while being masters of torture without a purpose other than sadistic evil.

How is this? I think we see what the educated person suspects, but which most people don't have a clue to.

The sadistic torture is not practiced by the forward thinking members of a group, but by the "thugs". Those who do the torture are actually looked down upon. In the 1950s, when this was produced, it was equivalent to the upstanding citizens, even among Southern red necks, who thought senseless brutality was sickening, and didn't partake of it. The ones who did so were seen as thugs, the kind of people you didn't vote into office, who you didn't make supervisor over employees.

Today, such thugs are highly valued in American culture, so it's hard to convince people who have never lived through a more civilized era that this could be. I think that's why the film isn't shown much any more. A generation Y person could not relate to it, because of the "common sense compassion" shown by Bronson and Steiger, which are looked down upon today in American culture.

This is what separated Geronimo from the great war chiefs. If you watch FORT APACHE and other old films, you notice that when he is introduced, it's evident he's not like the others. Most Apache leaders were tribe oriented towards their people. Geronimo is heralded today in American culture for the reason he was seen as despicable a hundred years ago. He was a sadistic thug.

Bronson's performance is noteworthy, as is the writing of his character. It gives the dimension of credibility for the times.



Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time

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