Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Sergeant Rutledge" in English language version.
Ford's message and his means of delivering it create problems. But his agenda and its relevance to film history are significant. The film itself may not provide the most memorable moments in the director's career, but it is an important contribution to our understanding of race in the 1960s.
Ford can show us an innocent victim of American racism, and stress in courtroom flashbacks his heroic credentials in white man's uniform, but he can never make the leap to offering us a black who actually rejects the role of honorary white.
Sergeant Rutledge was the first mainstream western to cast an African-American as the central heroic figure. There already had been other westerns with black characters--from the 1923 silent The Bull-Dogger to Bronze Buckaroo (1938) and Harlem on the Prairie (1939)--but these films were low-budget, all-black productions that were never screened for white audiences. Not only was Sergeant Rutledge produced by a major studio, but also it was directed by one of filmdom's most-respected talents, Ford.
Give John Ford a troop of cavalry, some hostile Indians, a wisp of story and chances are the director will come galloping home with an exciting film. Sergeant Rutledge provides an extra plus factor in the form of an offbeat and intriguing screenplay which deals frankly, if not too deeply, with racial prejudice in the post-Civil War era.
