Run of the Arrow

Samuel Fuller's 1957 western opens on the last day of the civil war. O'Meara is a southern soldier who refuses to accept that the war is over, refuses to be an American citizen and goes west to join the Sioux. The tribe accepts him after a particular ordeal, he marries a woman there and builds a new life. But when the army advances into the territory he has to choose a side, and where his anger has brought him he cannot tell whose side he is on. Fuller uses the western form to argue about identity; his protagonist is neither a figure who idealises the Sioux nor a soldier who has truly changed. The violence is brief and surprisingly harsh. Rod Steiger's performance has been disputed. Who it's for: viewers who like classic westerns and Samuel Fuller. Who it's not for: anyone unable to set aside how the period represented Indigenous peoples.