Tom Jeffords comes across a wounded 14-year-old Apache boy dying from buckshot wounds in his back. The boy first tries to attack him, not believing it possible that a White man would want to help him, but Jeffords gives the boy water and treats his wounds, staying with him until he heals. The Apache boy is surprised at his goodwill as he is a White man and supposed to be his enemy. The boy's tribesmen appear and are initially hostile, but decide to let Jeffords go free after the boy convinces them that he is a “good” White man who helped him rather than kill him. However, when a group of gold prospectors approaches, the Apache gag Jeffords and tie him to a tree. Helpless, he watches as they attack the prospectors and torture the survivors. The warriors then let him go, but warn him not to enter Apache territory again.
When Jeffords returns to Tucson, he encounters a prospector who escaped the ambush. He corrects a man's exaggerated account of the attack, but Ben Slade is incredulous and does not see why Jeffords did not kill the Apache boy. They have a contentious confrontation and Jeffords defends his choice to do the right thing, no matter who it was for. Jeffords turns down the army's request to scout Apache territory for them and instead learns the Apache language and customs from an Apache guide who lives amongst the townspeople. He plans to go to the Apache leader Cochise's stronghold on behalf of his friend, Milt, who is in charge of the mail service in Tucson. The mail has not been getting through because of Apache raids and Jeffords thinks this would be a good place to begin a peace treaty. He enters the Apache stronghold and begins a parley with Cochise, who agrees to let the mail couriers through after they realize their underlying morality is similar and Cochise is impressed by Jefford’s efforts to learn his language and his bravery for coming to him. Jeffords meets a young Apache woman, Sonseeahray, and they fall in love at first sight.
Despite Cochise agreeing to allow the mail to pass through, Apaches attack an army wagon train and kill the survivors, which was not part of their agreement. The townsfolk try to lynch Jeffords as a traitor for working with their enemies before he is saved by General Oliver Otis Howard who recruits him to negotiate a wider peace treaty with Cochise. Howard, the "Christian General" condemns racism, saying that the Bible "says nothing about pigmentation of the skin". They make a peace treaty with Cochise, but a group led by Geronimo oppose the treaty and leave the stronghold. When these renegades ambush a stagecoach, Jeffords rides off to seek help from Cochise and the stagecoach is saved with the Apaches’ help.
Jeffords and Sonseeahray marry in an Apache ceremony and have several days of tranquility. Ben Slade's son comes to them, telling a story to Jeffords and Cochise about two of his horses stolen by Cochise's people. Cochise says that his people did not take them and doubts his story, as he knows the boy's father is an Apache hater. They nonetheless decide to go along with the boy up the canyon and are ambushed by the boy's father and a gang of men from Tucson. Jeffords is shot and badly wounded and Sonseeahray is shot and killed, but Cochise kills most of the men, including Ben Slade. Cochise forbids Jeffords to retaliate, saying that the ambush was not done by the American military and that Geronimo broke the peace no less than Slade and his men, and that peace must be maintained. General Howard arrives with some of the townsfolk and informs Jeffords and Cochise that the men who survived the ambush and fled have been captured and will be executed for their crime. The townsfolk offer their condolences and apologize. Jeffords rides off with the belief that "the death of Sonseeahray had put a seal upon the peace, and from that day on wherever I went, in the cities, among the Apaches and in the mountains, I always remembered, my wife was with me".
Producer Julian Blaustein recalled: "We had a terrible time locating an actor with the proper voice and stature to play Cochise. Before we found Chandler we were even considering Ezio Pinza".[3]
Jeff Chandler was cast in May 1949 on the basis of his performance in Sword in the Desert. He was working in several radio series at the time, Michael Shayne and Our Miss Brooks, and had to be written out of them for several weeks.[4]
The film was based on the 558-page novel Blood Brother (1947) by Elliott Arnold, which told the story of the peace agreement between the Apache leader Cochise and the U.S. Army, 1855–1874. The studio employed nearly 240 Native Americans from Arizona's Fort Apache Indian Reservation; many location scenes were shot in Sedona, Arizona. The story of Cochise actually occurred in what is now the Dragoon Mountains in the Douglas Ranger District of the Coronado National Forest in southeastern Arizona. The studio attempted to portray Apache customs in the film, like the Social Dance and the Girl's Sunrise Ceremony (the girl's puberty rite). For the character of Cochise, director Daves eliminated the traditional style of broken English and replaced it with conventional English so that White Americans and Native Americans would sound alike.[6] An overdub by the character of Jeffords opens the film with a statement about this.
Portrayal of Native Americans
Although many Western films of the pre-World War II period portrayed the Indigenous peoples of the Americas as hostile to the mostly White American settlers, others showed them in a positive light. Broken Arrow is noteworthy for being one of the first post-war Westerns to portray Native Americans in a balanced, sympathetic way, helping to bring in the era of the revisionist Western genre. The two principal Apache characters were played by non-Indigenous actors, with Brooklyn-born Jeff Chandler portraying Apache leader Cochise, and White American Debra Paget playing Jimmy Stewart’s Apache love interest. Notably, Native Canadian Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels played Geronimo, a small part in the film but recognized at the time as there were few Indigenous actors working in Hollywood.[7] As well, the majority of extras were played by actual Apaches.
Some scholars have said that the film appealed to an ideal of tolerance and racial equality that would influence later Westerns and indicate Hollywood's response to the evolving role of Native Americans in the society of the United States.[8]Chronicle of the Cinema praised the film: "Based on verifiable fact, it faithfully evokes the historical relationship between Cochise and Jeffords, marking a historical rehabilitation of Indians in the cinema".[9]
In 1950, Rosebud Yellow Robe, a Native American folklorist, educator, and author, was hired by 20th Century Fox to undertake a national tour to promote the film. Yellow Robe explained that there were no such things as Native American princesses, and that the myth started when Pocahontas went to England and the English named her "Lady Rebecca". Yellow Robe voiced complaints about the portrayals of Indians on radio, screen, and television to "a new generation of children learning the old stereotypes about whooping, warring Indians, as if there weren't anything else interesting about us".[10]
^Angela Aleiss, "Hollywood Addresses Postwar Assimilation: Indian/White Attitudes in Broken Arrow", American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 11(1), pp. 67–79.
^Robyn Karney (editor), Chronicle of the Cinema; London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995; p. 400.
^"AFI's 10 Top 10 Nominees"(PDF). Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
Aleiss, Angela, Making the White Man's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies, London & CT: Praeger, 2005; ISBN0-275-98396-X
Karney, Robyn (editor), Chronicle of the Cinema; London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995; ISBN0-7894-0123-1
Lenihan, John H. Showdown: Confronting Modern America in the Western Film, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980; ISBN0-252-00769-7
O'Conner, John E. & Peter C. Rollins, eds. Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film [Paperback], The University Press of Kentucky, 2003; ISBN0813190770
