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George Montgomery stars as Paul Fletcher, a man who has been raised by the Pawnees since he was a young boy. He is known as Pale Arrow in the tribe. his adapted father Wise Eagle wants peace with the white men, while his adapted brother Crazy Fox is his enemy and wants to kill all the whites, including Pale Arrow. He is particularly angry because the beautiful Dancing Fawn prefers Pale Arrow to him.
Everything is kept pretty simple in this movie. The wise old Indian Chief is Wise Eagle. The heroic white Indian in Pale Arrow. The angry, crazy Indian is Crazy Fox and the beautiful Indian princess who prefers the white hero to the angry Indian warrior is Dancing Fawn. No need for a scorecard here, things were kept pretty simple in 1957. Crazy Fox says things like "I should take you by the hair and take you to my tent."
Pale Arrow - surprise, surprise - goes for the blonde white lady from the wagon train, dropping the beautiful Dancing Faun really quick. Pale Arrow agrees to help the whites against his people, because they are lead by the crazy Crazy Fox. Crazy Fox, however, was really not too crazy : the whites were going to keep coming until they drove the Pawnees out.
But this 1950's Western doesn't deal with shades of gray. Everything is black (or red) and white here. A good movie, despite all the stereotypes. A really good specimen of a type of movie that was made when things were much simpler, and everyone knew (or thought they knew) who the good guys were.
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