Main Cast: Richard Dix, Jane Novak, Larry Steers, Tully Marshall
Release Year: 1929
Country: US
Run Time: 81 minutes
Plot
Intended as a follow-up (and improvement upon) the 1926 epic western The Vanishing American, Redskin was partially filmed in two-color Technicolor -- and, during its first big-city road show engagements, was shown in Magnascope, an early wide-screen process. Written by Elizabeth Pickett, an expert on the Pueblo Indian tribe of New Mexico, the film is in part an indictment of the government's ham-handed efforts to "civilize" the Native American population. Dragged off his reservation by Indian agent John Walton (Larry Steers), Wing Foot (Philip Anderson), the 9-year-old son of a Navajo chief, is forced to speak English and acclimate himself to the ways of the white man. When Wing Foot refuses to salute the American flag, he is brutally whipped by Walton, earning himself the unenviable nickname of Do-Atin, or "The Whipped One." Overcoming his initial resentments, the grown-up Wing Foot (now played by Richard Dix) becomes the first Indian to attend Thorpe College. He excels scholastically and also distinguishes himself as a star athlete, yet still he is subjected to the bigotry of his snobbish classmates. Nor are things any better when Wing Foot graduates from medical school and returns to his own people, hoping to replace their ancient superstitions with modern medical advances. Banished from his tribe for being "too white," Wing Foot finds himself literally a man without a country. Only when he discovers oil on the reservation and manages to avert a tribal war between the Pueblo and Navajo is Wing Foot fully accepted by the two worlds he now straddles. Far superior to The Vanishing American, Redskin is well worth seeing again, if only for the documentary value of its location-filmed Technicolor sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Redskin is a 1929 feature film with a synchronized score and sound effects that was photographed partially in Technicolor. Color film was used for the scenes taking place on the Indians' land, while black and white was used only in the scenes set in the white man's world. Roughly two-thirds of the film is in color.
The title of the film is not meant to be degrading to Native Americans. It refers to the film's hero, Wing Foot (Richard Dix), who is a Navaho educated in an otherwise all-white school. In the course of the story he experiences prejudice from both the whites (because of his race) and the Navahos (who disown him because of his upbringing). Thus, Wing Foot is looked upon as neither Indian nor white, but simply a "redskin."
Made in the first liberal decade of the twentieth century, the film deals sympathetically with the American Indians in an era of filmmaking that far too many people think was one where Indians were shown as murderous savages. The conservatism of the 1940s and 1950s relegated the image of the American Indian as a murderous savage once again. It wouldn't be until the late 1960s and 1970s (when liberalism returned to the forefront) that films as sympathetic as Redskin would be made once again.
Not only does Redskin avoid this stereotype, but it also sidesteps the more contemporary, "politically correct" stereotype. In those films the Indians are generally depicted as being mainly peaceful and morally right, while the whites (save the main protagonist) are seen as the bloodthirsty savages - greedy bigots with little or no redeeming values. Instead of showing the red man as evil and the white man good - or vice versa - Redskin presents good and bad in both. The government agent who beats Wing Foot in the beginning of the picture eventually emerges as a decent man - some one who made a mistake and later regretted it. At the end he redeems himself by aiding Wing Foot in his attempt to register his oil claim. Redskin presents not only the conflict between whites and Indians, but also between the Indian races (Navajos and Pueblos are shown to dislike each other).
Redskin is currently available in the United States on disc 4 of the DVD collection Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934.
