Mann’s second western, The Furies (1950), is an operatically volatile, incest-laden vehicle for daddy Walter Huston and daughter Barbara Stanwyck. Next came Devil’s Doorway, an elegy for the American Indian. Hollywood was at last treating Native Americans with respect and compassion. Released in the summer of 1950, Delmer Daves’s Broken Arrow, a film that treated the Apaches sympathetically, became a very popular and acclaimed western. Later that year, Devil’s Doorway opened, but it was soon relegated to obscurity. Whereas Broken Arrow starred James Stewart as a scout and put Jeff Chandler’s Cochise in a supporting role, Devil’s Doorway’s Indian, played by Robert Taylor, is the starring role. Perhaps having a white main character made it easier for Broken Arrow to find an audience (even though the prominent Indians are played by white actors in both movies). Both films hold up exceedingly well, yet few people seem to know Devil’s Doorway. Not only is it a disturbing and powerful work about the inevitability of the Indians’ demise, but it’s also one of the more haunting westerns ever made.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
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