Sergeant Rutledge
Directed by John Ford
Written by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck
1960/USA
John Ford Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] 1st Sgt. Braxton Rutledge: Soldier can never think by his heart, ma’am. He got to think by the book.[/box]
Two years before To Kill a Mockingbird, John Ford gave us this courtroom drama/Western about a Buffalo solider accused of raping and killing a white woman.
The story is told in a mixture of scenes from the trial of Sgt. Rutledge (Woody Strode) and flashbacks based on witness testimony. When reshuffled into chronological order, it begins with the discovery of the bodies of a young woman, who had been raped, and her father, the commander of a frontier outpost, who was killed with a service revolver.
Then Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter) meets Mary Beecher (Constance Towers) on a train that is taking her home after twelve years in the East and Tom to the fort where he is stationed. After falling in love, the pair part at the station closest to Mary’s father’s ranch. There, Mary discovers that the station attendant has been killed by an Apache’s arrow. Her father has not shown up to meet her. She meets Sgt. Rutledge who is very nervous to be in the company of a white woman but protects her valiently.
It turns out Rutledge has been wounded and Mary tends him. Tom and some Buffalo soldiers arrive to the station to arrest Rutledge, who had been seen fleeing the scene of the crime. When the men learn of the Apache threat, the entire group including Rutledge, now handcuffed, and Mary sets off in pursuit. After Rutledge shows great bravery in the fight with the Indians, Tom brings him in only to defend him in his court martial. With Billie Burke, in her last screen appearance, as the judge’s flibberty-jibbet wife.
Woody Strode and the Monument Valley scenery are by far the best things about this movie. Strode has a natural dignity and presence that are mesmerizing. The other acting isn’t up to much and I wasn’t particularly fond of the screenplay either. The shouting at the trial is really overdone and seems false.
Lest anyone think John Wayne could not act, this movie is proof of his abilities. Jeffrey Hunter falls flat on his face when he attempts to deliver lines clearly written for the Duke in his hard-hitting blustery manner. I can’t think of another actor who could do better, really.
