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1955 Chief Crazy Horse, starring Victor Mature, is released
to a largely tepid reception. It is, however, notable for
taking a withering view of Custer's command. He is re-
vealed, by the end, to have been incompetent. The first
hints of sympathy for the Native American combatants
sneaks into the narrative.
1958 The Walt Disney company makes the family film Ton-
ka out of the life of Comanche the horse (see the arti-
cle about Comanche in this issue) starring Sal Mineo as
White Bull (see the article about "Throwing Your Life
Away" in this issue). Inaccurate and Disney-fied, it never-
theless made an estimated $2.5 million at the box office.
1965 The Great Sioux Massacre is released, starring Joseph
Cotten as Marcus Reno and Iron Eyes Cody as Crazy
Horse. As a film it is unremarkable, and reuses battle
scenes from the same director's Sitting Bull, filmed nine
years previously, as a cost-saving measure.
1967 Two Little Bighorn projects are released in the same
year. One is Custer of the West, a biography of Custer
filmed in Spain. Screenwriter Bernard Gordon wrote that
he "tried to give the Indians a fair shake...[it was] our
point of view that the Indians were victims right to the
end." The other project was television's The Legend of
Custer, or simply Custer, which ran for 17 episodes before
being taken off the air, partially due to extensive Native
American protests and a feeling that the time for the li-
onizing of Custer had passed.
American Imagination
