oldrebel: blog 
oldrebel's blog
early morning movie review
Published Aug. 27, 2009Views: 229
This is a real "golden, oldie" from 1970. Period pieces like this don't seem to suffer as much from the passage of years due to their inherent nature...except maybe the hokum soundtrack this film is saddled with. The song at the beginning of this movie, by Buffy Sainte-Marie, has to be one of the most irritating pieces of contralto gurgling ever put to an American film. Seriously, this is almost as bad as the massacre and multiple-rape scenes in the last twenty minutes. Almost.
Soldier Blue is loosely based on the Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864. Sand Creek was the site of what has been called the darkest blot of U.S. military actions of the nation's entire history. At least 400, and possibly as high as 600 peaceful men, women and children were slaughtered by elements of the Colorado Territory militia.
I'd bought this movie a couple of years ago on DVD and hadn't really sat down to watch it closely. The movie first came out in 1970 during the height of the Vietnam War and was deliberate allegory to that Asian conflict. It seems to me I can recall that the movie wasn't allowed to be shown on military bases when first released, but that's a personal anecdotal memory and may not be entirely true. Maybe someone else that was in uniform at that time will recall.
Anyhow, this is a movie I'd recommend for anyone that's interested in the Westward Ho mindset of the expansionist period. A time when Indians were treated less than dogs and even children and women were considered sport for some to disembowel and dismember...as they depict over and over in this film. Soldier Blue is not for the squeaminsh. There are multiple rape scenes, mutilations, murders, tortures...
But when one considers our fascination with the macabre by the attendance numbers for such films as Hostel, Saw, Elm Street series, Freddy movies with their blood fest and gore extavaganzas, it is curious why when we see the same actions portrayed in a historical setting, we tend to turn away. Maybe it's because we recognize the horror movies are simply the products of demented minds and we also realize the actions depicted in Soldier Blue, while also fictionalized to a degree...are nontheless based on a historical event of which there is documentation and evidence to support the notion of what happened out there on a lonely Colorado stream. Maybe we are truly ashamed that there are some within our number, that have the capacity to do such things. Then and now.
An example of the horrific nature of that massacre is encapsulated in the following paragraph, " After the smoke cleared, Chivington's men came back and killed many of the wounded. They also scalped many of the dead, regardless of whether they were women, children, or babies. Chivington and his men dressed their weapons, hats and gear with scalps and other body parts, including human fetuses and male and female genitalia. They also publicly displayed these battle trophies in Denver's Apollo Theater and area saloons."
http://www.nps.gov/sand/index.htm
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/four/sandcrk.htm
THE MOST SAVAGE FILM: RELIVING "SOLDIER BLUE"
Filed under: Movies & Movie Reviews
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August 27, 2009 11:35 a.m.
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August 27, 2009 11:42 a.m.
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