Cheyenne Autumn

Cheyenne Autumn
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Ford
Produced by	John Ford Bernard Smith
Written by	Mari Sandoz (non-fiction history) James R. Webb
Based on	The Last Frontier 1941 novel by Howard Fast
Starring	Richard Widmark Carroll Baker James Stewart Dolores del Río Edward G. Robinson Karl Malden
Music by	Alex North
Cinematography	William H. Clothier
Edited by	Otho Lovering
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	October 3, 1964
Running time	154 minutes
Language	English
Box office	$3,500,000 (US/ Canada rentals)

Cheyenne Autumn is a 1964 Western movie starring Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart, and Edward G. Robinson. Regarded as an epic film, it tells the story of a factual event, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-9, although it is told in 'Hollywood style' using a great deal of artistic license. The film was the last Western directed by John Ford, who proclaimed it an elegy for the Native Americans who had been abused by the U.S. government and misrepresented by many of the director's own films. With a budget of more than $4,000,000, the film was relatively unsuccessful at the box office and failed to earn a profit for its distributor, Warner Bros.

In 1878, Chiefs Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalban) and Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland) led over three hundred starved and weary Cheyenne from their reservation in the Oklahoma territory to their traditional home in Wyoming. The US government sees this as an act of rebellion, and the sympathetic Captain Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark) is forced to lead his troops in an attempt to stop the tribe. As the press misrepresents the natives' motives and goals for their trek as malicious, Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson) tries to prevent violence from erupting between the army and the natives. Also featured are James Stewart as Wyatt Earp, Dolores del Río as "Spanish Woman" and Carroll Baker as a pacifist Quaker school teacher and Archer's love interest.