Sergeant Rutledge

A court martial is convened. The accused is Braxton Rutledge, a sergeant in the cavalry with long service. The charge is grave: killing a white woman and shooting the officer who was her father. Everyone in the room has already decided. The defending officer, Lieutenant Cantrell, calls the witnesses and each describes what they saw that night and after. The narrative goes back through those statements. Rutledge had run after the night in question, and why he ran is at the centre of the case. John Ford directs. Woody Strode plays Rutledge and Jeffrey Hunter plays Cantrell. Putting a black soldier at the centre was unusual in Ford's cinema and in the Hollywood westerns of the period. The ground it rests on is historical; the black cavalry regiments formed after the civil war served in the west for many years. The matter it treats is not innocence but who is given the benefit of the doubt; the narrative explains why Rutledge ran directly in terms of race. The court scenes are the frame and the sections in open country are given as flashbacks. Woody Strode became known through the part and worked with Ford on several more films. Its limit is structure; the comic strand in the courtroom sits at odds with the weight of the narrative and the explanation at the end comes quickly. Who it is for: viewers who like classic westerns and courtroom drama. Who it is not for: the structure is unbalanced, some supporting characters formulaic, and the resolution easy.