The Zachary family are cattle ranchers, and after a lot of lean years, they and their neighbors actually have some good cattle to drive to Wichita to sell, and make money. But a wild, one-eyed man with a cavalry saber is drifting around the periphery of their home, spreading whispers that Rachel (Audrey Hepburn), might not be the baby of some dead settlers that the now-deceased Zachary patriarch rescued and adopted. She might be, gasp, an Injun baby!
The whispers spread among the Zachary's neighbors, and even to the Kiowa tribes in the nearby hills, as the family itself try to close ranks around their sister, even as doubts start to pull them apart. The eldest brother, Ben (Burt Lancaster) is steadfast in defending his sister, but the middle brother, Cash (Audie Murphy) is violently hateful towards anyone he even suspects is any kind of Native American.
This is another one of those Westerns where I see so much potential for a better film. Where director John Huston could have left it uncertain which version of Rachel's parentage was true, and what people decided for themselves was true spoke more about them than her.
There are pieces of that in here. Some of the other ranchers approach the head of the Rawlins family, long-time friends of the Zachary, because they've heard the rumors and they don't like it. And the elder Rawlins essentially tells them if they've got a problem, say it outright, to Ben's face, instead of sneaking around behind his back. Of course, once their son Charlie is killed, via arrows, after getting permission to marry Rachel, the matriarch Rawlins turns on Rachel in a second, all too eager for someone to blame. And Rachel, who Hepburn plays with a wide-eyed earnestness, will stand there and take it, even if she doesn't understand it.
And the film could have done more (anything, really) with the notion the Kiowas want back the child that was stolen from them years ago, that they presumed dead, only to learn she's been in another world too long. Instead, we get a lengthy siege battle, a bunch of Kiowas trying to break into the Zachary's home and either take Rachel or kill her. Yes, I know, it's a movie from 1960, there wasn't going to be a nuanced view of the perspective of a group of Native Americans about the abduction of a child, but it would have made for a more interesting movie if there was.
I do like that Huston spends time showing the day-to-day lives, not just of Zachary family, but also how they interact with others, especially the Rawlins family. Play up the connection between the two groups, so that the schism, when it comes feels all the more ugly. Mama Rawlins didn't have any objections to her son courting Rachel before, when she presumably knew or suspected just as much. But when things turn sour, she starts screaming slurs, and it makes Rachel's confusion all the more palpable, because you can understand how out of left field it must seem to her.
I like that the movie keeps Kelsey - the crazed guy with the saber - off-screen most of the time. He's there, watching, observing, occasionally screaming about being the sword of god, but most of what he's doing, we only see the after-effects. Ben and Cash know he's around, but their attempt to hunt him down fails, and he continues to operate when they're not around to confront him.
(The notion everyone would believe Kelsey's final statement because no one would lie as they were about to meet their Creator makes me roll my eyes, but I have to allow for a different time and attitude there.)
But, and here I don't know if this was Huston's doing or the studio chopped the movie up and mangled the pacing, it took too much of the runtime getting to the reveal and the ultimate fracture between the Zacharys, leaving too little for fallout. It happens, Cash's hatred bursts loose, but there's no time to delve into anything between the characters we're really supposed to care about. Gotta start the big final battle.
Lancaster has to play the grown-up, the one who indulges his baby sister or lets his brother rant when he needs to. Not laconic, but relaxed most of the time. An easy smile and a cool head, until he feels the need to be firm. When Rawlins demands Ben send Rachel to the Kiowas if he wants to continue their partnership, there's no hint of doubt in Ben's resolve to just ignore him and return home.
As a supporting actor here, Murphy gets to be less clean-cut and polite in his role, and he goes with it. Where Ben keeps his inner steel and resolve buried until he needs it. Cash runs off anger, and it's always right at the surface, 0 to 60 in a heartbeat. Even when he's ostensibly relaxing at a get-together dinner between the Zacharys and Rawlins, there's a mean edge to how he interacts with the marriage-happy daughter of the Rawlins' clan. Less so around his family, but it feels like that's only because he can aim it outward, towards the broad category of "Indians." Once he perceives the object of his hatred as being in his own home, he wheels on Rachel fast.
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