Broken Arrow was actually the start of James Stewart's return to the western genre. His first western was Destry Rides Again in 1939 and he waited for over 10 years to do another. After that he did them quite regularly.
Broken Arrow was made first, but held up over a year before release so Winchester 73 was actually Stewart's official return to the west. But both films had a lasting impact on his career.
This is the story of Army Captain Tom Jeffords who with a simple act of kindness started a peace process with the Apaches led by their charismatic leader Cochise. Jeffords, a veteran of the Union Army and the frontier wars is heartily sick of the slaughter he's witnessed and participated in. He finds an Indian boy who's been wounded by whites and he tends to them and heals him.
One thing leads to another and pretty soon Jeffords finds himself in the camp of Cochise with whom he strikes up a friendship. He also woos and wins an Apache maid named Sonseehray. Jeffords and Cochise with General Oliver O. Howard make a treaty with the Apache, at least most of them.
Broken Arrow did a lot for James Stewart, but even more for Jeff Chandler who plays Cochise. Cochise was a man in his late 60s when this was really taking place, but Chandler in his prematurely gray hair, portrays him well. Chandler got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Cochise.
Jeffords and Cochise are men of good will and decency who see an honest peace as the only answer. Of course both have to contend with people who won't or can't accept peace with the other race. It's those people and what they do break the peace that is the rest of Broken Arrow's story.
Delmar Daves is a good director of western films and in fact did another film about the U.S. government trying to make peace with another Indian tribe, the Modocs in Oregon, in the film Drumbeat. He gets good results out of the rest of the cast. Note the performances of Will Geer as an Indian hating rancher, Debra Paget as Sonseehray, and Basil Ruysdael as General Howard.
The screenplay was done by Albert Maltz of the Hollywood Ten. How ironic that Maltz was blacklisted after this film. I suppose a film about peace between the races and good will towards one's fellow men was highly subversive.
Broken Arrow was given much acclaim for being the first film to express the view that Indians were something more than bloodthirsty savages. That's not exactly true, other films around that time started saying the same thing. Nevertheless Broken Arrow's message is an eternal one.
Says so in the Scriptures if I'm not mistaken.
