The Indian Fighter: André de Toth

André de Toth's The Indian Fighter is a proto-Revisionist Western that portrays American cavalrymen as bigoted, settlers as greedy opportunists willing to enslave Native Americans with alcohol in exchange for gold, and the Native Americans as completely justified in their fury and anger towards the White Man. Even its hero, the eponymous "Indian fighter" Johnny Hawks, an ex-soldier from the Civil War tasked with escorting a group of settlers through Sioux territory, is depicted as self-centered (he abandons his wagon train so he can "rendezvous" with an Indian woman) and dangerously possessive (early scenes where he effectively forces himself on the same Indian woman while the soundtrack blares romantic music are extremely cringe-worthy). At times I found myself wondering if De Toth was deliberately poking holes into the persona of the Western genre equivalent of the Great White Hunter. The Indian Fighter, with all of its cynicism, tasted like a bitter pill. But it does contain some incredible cinematography. I pointed out one fantastic example of the film's cinematography over here. But another is an Indian attack on a cavalry fort late in the film where the combatants seem to smash against the fort's towering walls that reach up and up into the sky. The film still suffers from yellowfaced actors and painful stereotypes such as Johnny Hawks being able to defeat Native Americans in one-on-one fights (thereby indicating that White Men are better at being Indians than actual Indians). But The Indian Fighter is a fascinating, and arguably important, film.

7/10