History Film / CheyenneAutumn

A band of the Cheyenne Nation has been relocated from their homeland in Wyoming to a Cavalry-run camp in Oklahoma. After experiencing disease, humiliation and indifference, they decide to leave the camp and make the 1,500-mile trek back home. The Cavalry pursues them, but their commander, Capt. Thomas Archer (Creator/RichardWidmark), has some sympathy for the Cheyenne and their cause. Also, Deborah Wright (Carroll Baker), a Quaker schoolteacher who Archer has fallen in love with, is part of the trek, joining after she decides that her young students need protection on the trail.

* EpicMovie: Creator/JohnFord's major attempt at this genre, running two-and-a-half hours and boasting LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters.

''Cheyenne Autumn'' is a 1964 film directed by Creator/JohnFord. It's an {{Epic}} [[TheWestern Western]] telling the story of the 1878 incident usually known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus.

A band of the Cheyenne Nation has been relocated from their homeland in Wyoming to a Cavalry-run camp in Oklahoma. After experiencing disease, humiliation and indifference, they decide to leave the camp and make the 1,500-mile trek back home. The Cavalry pursues them, but their commander, Capt. Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark), has some sympathy for the Cheyenne and their cause. Also, Deborah Wright (Carroll Baker), a Quaker schoolteacher who Archer has fallen in love with, is part of the trek, joining after she decides that her young students need protection on the trail.

Meanwhile, among the Cheyenne themselves there's a power struggle between their two strong leaders, bold Little Wolf (Creator/RicardoMontalban) and pragmatic Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland). As their trek arouses curiosity and fear--shown in part with a long, largely non-plot-related segment where Dodge City residents start panicking while Wyatt Earp (Creator/JimmyStewart) and Doc Holliday (Arthur Kennedy) are immersed in a card game--the tribe splits up, and Dull Knife's group (including Deborah) petitions for help at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. But the fort's commander, Capt. Oskar Wessels (Karl Malden), a German immigrant eager for a promotion, imprisons them in a warehouse in the dead of winter, leading to a shocking turn of events. It's up to Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz (Creator/EdwardGRobinson) to straighten everything out.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The very rough outline of events as depicted in the movie are basically true, but otherwise there's lots of dramatic license, with some characters invented from whole cloth. One bit of HistoricalVillainUpgrade is Cavalry Capt. Henry Wessells Jr., a New York-born son of a brigadier general, getting turned into German-American {{Jerkass}} Oskar Wessels.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The very rough outline of events as depicted in the movie are basically true, but otherwise there's lots of dramatic license, with some characters invented from whole cloth. One bit of HistoricalVillainUpgrade is Cavalry Capt. Henry Wessells. Jr., a New York-born son of a brigadier general, getting turned into German-American {{Jerkass}} Oskar Wessels.

* SuggestedBy: While it's credited as having been "suggested by" the 1953 novel ''Cheyenne Autumn'' by Mari Sandoz, it's really a loose adaptation of both the Sandoz book and an earlier attempt at HistoricalFiction about the Exodus, the 1941 novel ''The Last Frontier'' by Howard Fast (of ''Film/{{Spartacus}}'' fame). In particular, Capt. Archer is an {{Expy}} of Capt. Murray in the ''The Last Frontier'' and the Dodge City interlude is taken from Fast's book.

Meanwhile, among the Cheyenne themselves there's a power struggle between their two strong leaders, bold Little Wolf (Creator/RicardoMontalban) and pragmatic Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland). As their trek arouses curiosity and fear--shown in part with a long, largely non-plot-related segment where Dodge City residents start panicking while Wyatt Earp (Creator/JimmyStewart) and Doc Holliday (Arthur Kennedy) are immersed in a card game--the tribe splits up, and Dull Knife's group (including Deborah) petitions for help at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. But the fort's German immigrant commander, Capt. Oskar Wessels (Karl Malden), eager for a promotion, imprisons them in a warehouse in the dead of winter, leading to a shocking turn of events. It's up to Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz (Creator/EdwardGRobinson) to straighten everything out.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The very rough outline of events as depicted in the movie are basically true, but otherwise there's lots of dramatic license, with some characters invented from whole cloth. One bit of HistoricalVillainUpgrade is Cavalry Capt. Henry Wessells. Jr., a New York-born son of a General, getting turned into German-American {{Jerkass}} Oskar Wessels.

* BilingualBonus: The Native American extras were all Navajo, and in the scenes where they are supposedly speaking Cheyenne they are actually speaking Navajo. These lines were unscripted, generally had nothing to do with the scene, and usually get a laugh out of any Navajo speakers in the audience.

A band of the Cheyenne Nation has been relocated from their homeland in Wyoming to a Cavalry-run camp in Oklahoma. After experiencing disease, humiliation and indifference, they decide to leave the camp and make the 1,500-mile trek back home. The Cavalry pursues them, but their commander, Capt. Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark) has some sympathy for the Cheyenne and their cause. Also, Deborah Wright (Carroll Baker), a Quaker schoolteacher who Archer has fallen in love with, is part of the trek, joining after she decides that her young students need protection on the trail.

A band of the Cheyenne Nation has been relocated from their homeland in Wyoming to a Cavalry-run camp in Oklahoma. After experiencing disease, humiliation and indifference, they decide to leave the camp and make the 1,500-mile trek back home. The Cavalry pursues them in an attempt to intercept them, but their commander, Capt. Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark) has some sympathy for the Cheyenne and their cause. Also, Deborah Wright (Carroll Baker), a Quaker schoolteacher who Archer has fallen in love with, is part of the trek, joining after she decides that her young students need protection on the trail.