Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Nevada Smith (1966)






Well, Hollywood got Steve McQueen to play a half Kiowa character in this film, that's sort of like getting Charlton Heston to play a Mexican in Orson Well's Touch Of Evil!  This was back in the day, when you just didn't give roles like this to native actors...no one said much about then.  They think they have something to say about it now...more about that later in my post on Johnny Depp as Tonto.  This film actually features a "real fake Indian" in the form of an actor who called himself Iron Eyes Cody (he was the crying Indian from the do not liter TV campaign of the 1970's) who was actually the son of Italian immigrants, and whose real name was Espera DeCorti [he did actually marry a native women].    The one thing that I can say about this, is at least the Indian issues a real, and it spares no detail in the brutality of the violence inflicted on the mixed race couple that are supposed to be Nevada's parents.  The description of what the 3 outlaws do to his Kiowa mother are very close to the reality of how native women were defiled and dismembered in massacres that the one at Sand Creek in 1864.  I can appreciate the film for that!  


























This is Espera DiCorti aka Iron Eyes Cody

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