Braveheart (1925 film)

Braveheart
Directed by Alan Hale, Sr.
Produced by Cecil B. DeMille
Written by Mary O'Hara from the play by William C. deMille
Starring Rod La Rocque
Lillian Rich
Distributed by Producers Distributing Corporation
Release dates
  • December 27, 1925 (1925-12-27)
Running time
 71 minutes
Country United States
Language Silent film
English intertitles

Braveheart is a 1925 silent film western directed by Alan Hale, Sr. and starring Rod La Rocque. The story focuses on members of a tribe of Indians who are being intimidated by the owners of a canning company seeking to violate the treaty protecting the tribe's fishing grounds.[1][2]

History

A project by Cecil B. DeMille,[3][4] initially it is named "Strongheart" after a play written by his brother William C. deMille circa 1904 and produced on Broadway in 1905[5] as his first major success.[6] A film had been developed in 1914 from it.[7][8][9] However, as the success of the play continued, a remake of the film was undertaken. Nipo T. Strongheart, early in his work in Hollywood with Native American topics, was asked to rewrite the movie and he included elements referring to the Yakima Nation and had the hero succeed in preserving Indian fishing rights,[4] a topic of some recent interest.[10] The original movie was 30 min long.[11] and the revised movie was 71 min.[12] However as the project neared completion another "Strongheart" took to film – a canine star.[5][13] Subsequently the DeMille film was retitled and released as Braveheart. Nipo T. Strongheart played a role in the film playing a Medicine Man and collaborating on the screenplay.[3][8][14] A news story covering the work is echoed a couple places – New York,[15] and California.[16] Sometimes advertising for performance-lectures of Nipo Strongheart from then on would have him in Indian costume as well as a scene from the movie where he was dressed in normal attire.[8]

Nipo Strongheart was able to include Indians not dressed up in Indian costumes and succeeding in redressing wrongs done to them – however much the lead role was still a white man in Indian costume.[3][4][8][9]

One scholar said:

The court sequence is heavily and multiply textualized… conveying legal arguments and judgements that refer to treaties.… the judge's decision parses the meaning of the treaty text itself: "We have examined the Federal treaty with the Indians and find that it gives them the right to fish where and when they please, without limitation by State tax or private ownership."[7]

A restoration of Braveheart was done by the "Washington Film Preservation Project" and the film shown at a Yakama Nation Native American Film Festival in 2006[17] and 2007.[18]

Cast

Uncredited is Nipo T. Strongheart.[19]

Further reading

Joanna Hearne (25 January 2013). Native Recognition: Indigenous Cinema and the Western. SUNY Press. pp. 78, 107. ISBN 978-1-4384-4399-7. 

Lori Lynn Muntz (May 2006). Representing Indians: The Melodrama of Native Citizenship in United States Popular Culture of the 1920s (Thesis). Department of English, University of Iowa. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-542-79588-6. UMI3225654. Retrieved August 26, 2014. 

References

  1. ↑ Braveheart at silentera.com database
  2. ↑ The American Film Institute Catalog Feature Films: 1921-30 by The American Film Institute, c. 1971
  3. 1 2 3 Alexander Ewen; Jeffrey Wollock (2014). "Strongheart, Nipo". Encyclopedia of the American Indian in the Twentieth Century. online. Facts On File, Inc. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 Strongheart, Nipo T. (Autumn 1954). "History in Hollywood". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 38 (1): 10–16, 41–46. JSTOR 4632754.
  5. 1 2 for more on the movie see Angela Aleiss (1 January 2005). Making the White Man's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 7, 25–29. ISBN 978-0-275-98396-3.
  6. ↑ Thomas S. Hischak (6 May 2004). The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Oxford University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-19-516986-7.
  7. 1 2 Joanna Hearne (25 January 2013). Native Recognition: Indigenous Cinema and the Western. SUNY Press. pp. 78, 107. ISBN 978-1-4384-4399-7.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Lori Lynn Muntz (May 2006). Representing Indians: The Melodrama of Native Citizenship in United States Popular Culture of the 1920s (Thesis). Department of English, University of Iowa. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-542-79588-6. UMI3225654. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
  9. 1 2 John E. Conklin (15 October 2008). Campus Life in the Movies: A Critical Survey from the Silent Era to the Present. McFarland. pp. 119–120. ISBN 978-0-7864-5235-4.
  10. ↑ "Yakima Indians see governor and get old fishing rights". The Oregon Daily Journal. Portland, Oregon. 9 January 1920. p. 1. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
  11. ↑ Strongheart (1914) at the Internet Movie Database
  12. ↑ Braveheart (1925) at the Internet Movie Database
  13. ↑ Strongheart the Dog at the Internet Movie Database
  14. ↑ "Film Actor works with Ty Jr, now". The Deseret News. Salt Lake City, Utah. Aug 31, 1952. p. 4. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  15. ↑ ""Braveheart" at the American" (PDF). The Troy Times,. Troy, N. Y,. February 20, 1926. p. ?, (left down from top). Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  16. ↑ "Nipo Strongheart is "Braveheart" is Real Medicine Man". Covina Argus. Covina, California. 12 February 1926. p. 3. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
  17. ↑ Nowacki, Kim (November 10, 2006). "Native American Film Festival -- Preservation celebration". Yakima Herald-Republic. Yakima Washington. p. ?.
  18. ↑ Nowacki, Kim (November 9, 2007). "Indian filmmakers getting their stories out". Yakima Herald-Republic. Yakima Washington. p. ?.
  19. ↑ Alexander Ewen; Ewen, Alexander (2014). "Strongheart, Nipo". Encyclopedia of the American Indian in the Twentieth Century. online. Facts On File, Inc. Retrieved August 19, 2014.

External links

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