It begins slow--the early dialogue is unnaturally preachy, "half-breed" Flippen looks absurd in his jet-black wig, and Steiger tries so hard to do a Southern drawl and an Irish brogue at the same time that I thought he was going to hurt himself--but by the time we reach the "run of the arrow," things are going smoothly, and the result is a complex political Western that had a lot to say about national allegiance and racism in the 50's and still has a lot to say to us now.

The most nuanced depiction of white-American vs. Native politics I've seen in a movie. No stereotypical goodies or baddies here: the whites are exploiters and the natives are barbaric, but the Yankee soldier with the arrow in his chest, who with his last breath tells his brethren "don't use me to start a war" is no better or worse than the Sioux squaw who saves Rod Steiger. Steiger is amazingly persuasive as a mess of contradictions, the "Irish Indian" confederate renegade. The ending is great.

Nice to see Charles Bronson as a Sioux Indian.