Sergeant Rutledge (1960) (Warner Bros.) (112 mins.) (C) (DVD)

Directed by John Ford

Screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck

Based on the story “Shadow of the Noose” by John and Ward Hawkins

Produced by Willis Goldbeck and Patrick Ford

Cinematography; Bert Glennon

Editor: Jack Murray

Art Director; Edddie Imazu

Set Decoration; Frank N. Miller

Costumes; Marjorie Best

Music: Howard Jackson

Song; “Captain Buffalo” (Music & lyrics by Mack David and Jay Livingston)

Release Date; 5/18/60

Aspect Ratio 1.85 : 1 (letterbox)

Plot: In the post Civil War west, Calvary Sergeant Braxton Rutledge (Woody Strode) is on trial for the rape and murder of a young white woman, Rutledge is prosecuted by Captain Shaddock (Carleton Young) who is all too eager to judge the black man guilty before the evidence is presented. Defending Rutledge is Lieutenant Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter) who remains convinced of the sergeant’s innocence.

Stuffing his well chewed handkerchief into a jacket pocket, the old man stood up and looked around the room. “I’m John Ford.” he said. “I make westerns.” It was both a simple way to identify himself and a tremendous understatement.” Ford saying he made westerns was like Da Vinci saying he painted a little. John Ford was a master if the genre. Yet, his career wasn’t limited to one kind of film. After the coming of sound, Ford made sixty one features. Among them are dramas and comedies, action pictures, love stories, historical pageants and a few war movies.

Yet, it’s for his fourteen westerns that Ford is best known.; Stagecoach (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), 3 Godfathers (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagon Master (1950), Rio Grande (1960), The Searchers (1956), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (!962), How the West was Won (“The Civil War”) (1962) and  Cheyenne Autumn (1954) are part of the foundation upon which the modern western was built.

Ford’s films usually featured major players like John Wayne, who starred in eight of the director’s westerns. The two Ford westerns which didn’t have “A List” stars were Wagonmaster (1950) and Sergeant Rutledge (1960). These were two of Ford’s least profitable pictures, but remain two of his best.

Perhaps Ford left players like Fonda, Wayne and Stewart out of the picture for good reason. By not casting a major star in a principle role, the director forced story and character to become the film’s primary focus.

By the 1960’s Ford, who had been a staunch Roosevelt democrat, was drifting to the right. By the time Vietnam stirred major controversy; Ford had become an unabashed hawk and supported U.S. foreign policy. Yet the director abhorred prejudice of any kind.

Compared to well intentioned marshmallow fluff like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Sergeant Rutledge is a powerful movie. The film’s success is due to its intriguing, screenplay, fine direction, evocative cinematography and the intuitive work of an ensemble cast of gifted equals.

Sergeant Rutledge is noted for the ways in which its characters display their intolerance. By word choice and inflection, they reveal their true natures without resorting to hate speech. Though Rutledge remains a dignified presence, he’s guilty of being other than Caucasian, For that alone, he’s been judged guilty before evidence can be presented by either side.

With Sergeant Rutledge and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, John Ford adopted a theatrically minimalist approach unlike that of his earlier features. Both films are heavily stylized and little attempt is made towards realism.

Liberty Valence was completely shot on the stages of Paramount, while Rutledge contrasts the lyrical vistas of Monument Valley with a courtroom drama presented as a stage play. Throughout the picture, Ford employs lighting effects more common to theater than film. For example, as Constance Towers’ Mary Beecher begins to give testimony, the lights fade on the rest of the courtroom while she remains in the spotlight. 

Like all of the Ford films, Sergeant Rutledge was made by a crew familiar with the director’s unique work habits. On the set every day, Danny Borzage played his accordion; providing music to suit the mood required by the scenes being filmed.  Ford’s arrival on the stage was signaled by a ritual playing of “Bringing in the Sheaves.” The entire company broke for tea at 4 PM no matter what was going on at the time

Location shooting meant staying at Gouldings Outpost, on the edge of Monument Valley. Life at Gouldings during a Ford film resembled a, western summer camp for overgrown kids. At sunrise and at sunset, the colors were raised and lowered in solemn ceremony Cast and crew were headquartered in primitive cabins while meals were served in a community tent. In the valley below the lodge, the Native Americans hired by the production set up their village of teepees. Nights were filled with the sounds of their music.

Though Ford was an alcoholic, he could go for prolonged periods minus drink when engaged in a production. No booze was allowed on location and violations were dealt with harshly  After a film had wrapped, Ford would repair to his yacht; The Araner and drink himself into oblivion.

Though composer Howard Jackson wrote his only Ford score for Sergeant Rutledge, many of the film’s principle craftsmen were involved with the director on multiple projects. Cinematographer Bert Glennon had shot The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), The Hurricane (1937), Stagecoach (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Rio Grande and  Wagon Master (1950) for Ford. Glennon was Oscar nominated for his work on Stagecoach and Drums Along the Mohawk and also for Dive Bomber (1941, Michael Curtiz).

Co-writer James Warner Bellah worked with Ford on Fort Apache (1948), She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Bellah had much military experience and was a keen student of history. Yet, he was also a rabid right winger. Often, epithets had to be expunged when Bellah’s dialogue was transferred from page to screen. 

When he co-wrote Sergeant Rutledge, screenwriter Willis Goldbeck was at the end of a career that had begun in the silent era. Goldbeck and Bellah would again collaborate on the screenplay of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence in 1962.

In the films co-written by Goldbeck and Bellah, the humanist values of past Ford screenwriter Dudley Nichols (The Informer (1935), Stagecoach (1939) and the moral complexity of Ford screenwriter Frank Nugent (Fort Apache (1948), The  Last Hurrah) (1958) gave way to mordant cynicism.

Jeffrey Hunter was probably best known as Captain Christopher Pike in Star Trek’s The Cage (1966, Robert Butler) or as Jesus in King of Kings (1961 Nicholas Ray). Born Henry Herman McKinnies in New Orleans, Hunter’s name was changed by Daryl F. Zanuck when he signed the actor to Fox. For Ford, Hunter had portrayed Martin Pawley who along with John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards, became one of The Searchers (1956). In 1958, Hunter had a featured role in support of Spencer Tracy in Ford’s The Last Hurrah.

 Constance Towers was a competent singer/actress who had made her film debut in Ford’s The Horse Soldiers (1959) with John Wayne and William Holden. She would go on to star in cult classics Shock Corridor (1963) and The Naked Kiss (1964), both of which were written and directed by Samuel Fuller.

 At the center of Sergeant Rutledge is the subtly nuanced performance of Woody Strode in the title role. Born Woodrow Wilson Woodwine Strode in 1914 in Los Angeles, Strode was an athlete before becoming an actor. Along with Kenny Washington, he broke professional football’s color line when he signed with the Los Angeles Rams. After playing in the Canadian Football League, Strode then spent a few years as a professional wrestler

Woody Strode became good friends with Ford. and was a member of the director’s inner circle. Strode became one of the few whose company was welcomed by the director in his declining years.

Following Sergeant Rutledge, Strode appeared in Ford’s Two Rode Together (1961) with James Stewart and Richard Widmark, The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) with Stewart, Wayne and Lee Marvin and in 7 Women (1966). which was the director’s last film

Aside from his work with Ford, Woody Strode had memorable roles in Demetrious and the Gladiators (1965, Delmer Daves), The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille), Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick) and The Professionals (1966, Richard Brooks)

Unlike the characters Sidney Poitier often found himself playing, Strode’s Braxton Rutledge isn’t too good to be true. A man of quick temperament and considerable ego, Rutledge has learned how to get along in a white dominated world. Yet he is no stereotypical second class citizen. As an army officer, Rutledge is careful to maintain his dignity. When circumstances conspire to isolate hm in the company of a white woman, the sergeant is painfully aware of the dangers involved.

In his last \decade as a director, John Ford added four chapters to his western canon. Sergeant Rutledge (1960) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) are the director’s last great films. The breezy Two Rode Together (1961) is a genial romp in a minor key, while the stately Cheyenne Autumn (1964) is a flawed but grand last statement. In his final western, the Native American characters are enlightened beings of tragic nobility.

When one mentions the sixties, people tend to think of Woodstock. Haight-Ashbury, psychedelia, Vietnam, riots, assassinations, and demonstrations. Yet, before all that got going, there was a brief period of optimism in which anything seemed possible.

When the overall national climate is positive, people find it easier to examinee problems of social importance. In 1962, Hollywood turned out films including Advise and Consent (Otto Preminger), Birdman of Alcatraz (John Frankenheimer), The Days of Wine and Roses (Blake Edwards), The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer), To Kill A Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan) and Sergeant Rutledge/

Years before the issue became widely discussed; Sergeant Rutledge found himself a victim of racial profiling. Making an assumption based on appearance usually leads to the wrong conclusions. Yet, that’s exactly what the townspeople of Ford’s film do in the case of the African-American soldier accused of rape and murder.

Sergeant Rutledge is an underrated but still powerful indictment of intolerance that sounds a prescient warning.

Jp ‘06

(John Kaufman)

Allston, Ma

Sources

IMDB.com (Internet Movie Data Base)

Allmovie.com (All Movie Guide)

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