U | 1 h 51 min | Drama | 1960
John Ford sets his courtroom drama in the late 19th century at the U.S. Army HQ, Department of the Southwest, Arizona. He uses this whodunit to frame the virtues of truth, justice, and courage as a bulwark against prejudice.
Sgt. Braxton Rutledge (Woody Strode), black “top soldier” of the nearly all-black 9th Cavalry, faces two criminal charges at a court martial. One: The murder (offscreen) of the 9th’s Arizona outpost Commanding Officer Custis Dabney. Two: The rape and murder (also offscreen) of a young woman, the C.O.’s daughter, Lucy Dabney. Townsfolk are in the mood for a hanging.
Besides, the 9th’s Lt. Col. Otis Fosgate (Willis Bouchey), president of the court-martial, is in the mood for a quick, quiet resolution. Why embarrass HQ further? After all, Rutledge is a former slave. What’s to investigate?
Defense counsel Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter) faces haughty prosecution counsel Capt. Shattuck (Carleton Young). Shattuck is self-assured because circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly damns Rutledge. Rutledge’s own black regiment reports that he’d gone missing after the incident. Rutledge won’t explain two gunshot wounds near his rib cage; C.O. Dabney had fired twice at someone fleeing his dead daughter.
Worse, Cantrell arrests Rutledge at a lonely cottage, in the company of an attractive white woman, Mary Beecher (Constance Towers). Beecher has just returned to Arizona after many years, and Cantrell has taken a fancy to her. She’s adamant: Rutledge protected her from an Apache raiding party.
The 6-foot 4-inch U.S. military veteran, footballer, athlete, and wrestler Strode brings a commanding presence and a quiet nobility to his role as Rutledge. Reportedly, Ford favored Strode over the likes of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte because he wanted the soldierly physicality so unique to Strode. Strode gets to speak his piece on the witness stand only after an hour into the movie, but he makes it count.
The 5-foot 9-inch Ms. Towers literally towers over other women here, and brings her own brand of courage and dignity to her role as the only woman standing between Rutledge and the gallows. In her final film, the charming Billie Burke provides comic relief as crusty old Col. Fosgate’s wife.
Truth Withers Prejudice
The film’s ending does seem a bit too pat, but Ford’s storytelling converts what might pass off as a mere procedural into an engrossing look at how truth, justice, and courage overcome even the most entrenched fear and prejudice. Through Rutledge’s heroism, Ford salutes the contours of old-world masculinity: strength, self-respect (which breeds respect for women), restraint, daring and decency.In the courtroom, Ford uses cowboy shots, medium shots, and medium close-up shots to set up his characters; low-angle shots accentuate Shattuck’s manipulative leverage of prevailing prejudice to press home his points. In the desert, Ford uses extreme wide shots and wide shots to depict the drama between Cantrell’s search party with a handcuffed Rutledge in tow, and a riotous Apache raiding party.
Early in the film, when it seems like nobody has the courage to stand for justice, Ford deliberately darkens the courtroom before he runs his flashbacks, just as witnesses take turns to narrate what happened. Light lingers only on the witness, sworn to the truth, making his or her words starker. Symbolically, Ford’s clearing the room of light, color, and contrast in a way that you can’t tell white from black. Almost everyone looks like someone else, anyone else. Ford knows that it’s truth that lends light, color, and contrast to otherwise confused or corrupted contexts. Here, he demonstrates that cinematically.
As the subplots unfold, as the truth becomes clearer, and with more witnesses boldly taking the stand, Ford does away with this darkening. When truth is unclear, fear (of the unknown, the unfamiliar, the unseen) abounds. And so does prejudice. But as truth clears the air, and as more people courageously stand for justice to prevail, fear recedes. And so, as it happens, does prejudice.
