Cheyenne Autumn (1964) on Netflix

NR19642h 34mDrama History Western

Supplies promised to the Northern Cheyenne never reach their Oklahoma reserve. Led by Dull Knife and Little Wolf, the tribe sets out for Yellowstone, and Captain Thomas Archer's cavalry follows.

Netflix3.4/5
IMDb6.7/107,084 votes
Rotten Tomatoes60%

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Plot summary

By 1878 the Northern Cheyenne live on a reservation in Oklahoma, far from their Yellowstone homeland, and the supplies the government promised by treaty do not come. Deborah Wright, a Quaker school teacher at a nearby homestead, takes the Cheyenne children as her pupils. A cavalry troop under Captain Thomas Archer, her intended husband, is posted with the tribe, awaiting a congressional committee whose visit has been postponed to Fort Reno. Archer assures the leaders Dull Knife and Little Wolf that the agency will provide for them, but Dull Knife pulls the children out of the school, and the Cheyenne decide to make the long journey home. Deborah chooses to go with them.

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cheyenne Autumn (1964)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

John Ford used Navajo people to portray the Cheyenne, so the dialogue meant to be in the "Cheyenne language" is actually Navajo; the film became popular in Navajo communities because the actors were openly using ribald and crude language that had nothing to do with the story.
While filming tundra scenes in Colorado in December 1963, director John Ford sprained his ankle and consumed so much codeine that he became incapacitated, and Richard Widmark stepped in to direct.
According to Howard Fast, Ford handed Webb a copy of Fast's novel while falsely claiming it was public domain; Columbia Pictures then filed a plagiarism suit against Warner Bros., which settled out of court with Columbia for an undisclosed sum.
On November 22, 1963, John Ford was filming Cheyenne Autumn in Moab, Utah, when he paused production after hearing that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas; the next morning he had nearby flags lowered to half-staff and gave a speech to the production crew commemorating Kennedy.
To play the Cheyenne leaders Dull Knife and Little Wolf, John Ford wanted Anthony Quinn and Richard Boone, actors with some Indian ancestry, and also suggested Woody Strode; he cast Mexican and Italian actors Sal Mineo, Gilbert Roland, Ricardo Montalbán and Dolores del Río as the principal tribal leaders.
In July 1963 The New York Times reported that Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, Richard Widmark and Carroll Baker had the principal roles in the film, then titled The Long Flight; Tracy backed out of the project because he did not like the script.
Ford's first cut of the film ran 158 minutes, his longest work; Warner Bros. mandated cuts, and when the studio wanted to remove the Dodge City sequence with James Stewart as Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holliday, Bernard Smith insisted it be left in.