The Plainsman (1936)

Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper) discovers that a man (Charles Bickford) is selling repeating rifles to hostile Cheyenne. After passing the information on to General Custer (John Miljan), Hickok goes to Cheyenne country to find out why they have gone to war. But he is captured, along with Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur) by the Indians. I don't know what Cecil B. DeMille thought he was doing, he seems to think he was making something more than a mere western. What he made was a surprisingly routine historically inaccurate western. Only the strong screen presence of Cooper and Arthur holds the pieces together. If their parts had been played by, say Warner Baxter and Frances Dee, it would have been another run of the mill oater. As it is, it's a rather sluggish affair. The film's portrayal of the Indians as savage brutes is rather irritating. There's a scene where a group of menacing Cheyenne corner Jean Arthur alone in a cabin and the scene fades to black. The next scene shows her dress ripped (a suggestion she'd been raped?) and a prisoner of the Indians dragging her with a rope to their camp. The forgettable score is by the usually reliable George Antheil. With James Ellison (I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE) as Buffalo Bill, Anthony Quinn, Frank Albertson, Helen Burgess and Porter Hall.