Alicia I love this movie so much

Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

romanorum1 Unlike most of Director John Ford's Westerns that feature much action, "Sergeant Rutledge" is mainly a courtroom drama told mainly in flashback. The time is 1881. The gist of the story is a black Ninth US Cavalry sergeant accused in the rape and murder of a teen-aged white girl Lucy Dabney (Toby Michaels) and also the murder of her father. Woody Strode ably plays the role of the sergeant, Braxton Rutledge. When he tells his enlisted men about "white woman's business" we know he is talking about serious trouble. Rutledge's capable courtroom defender is Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter), whose job is to piece together the facts, despite constant badgering by the prosecutor, Captain Shattuck. In a highly emotional setting, Shattuck likes to make racial innuendos although he is dealing with a military court of savvy men. Complicating matters is an Apache Mescalero outbreak of hostilities. Later in the film there are two interesting engagements between the Buffalo soldiers and the Apaches. The movie is fine enough despite two drawbacks: (1) It is too long and (2) the weak trial resolution. The confession by the real murderer is over-dramatic and contrived. It is doubtful that anyone in US court has made such a strange confession, especially when the evidence was hardly circumstantial ("I had to have her!"). Perhaps the real killer had a change of conscience. But, despite its drawbacks, the film was groundbreaking in its day and still is enjoyable today. On-location shooting in Monument Valley (and Mexican Hat: note the hat rock formation in the background shots) is always spectacular. A nice shot is that of the troopers standing firm in line of battle with the Indians. "Captain Buffalo" is a moving western song about the soldiers. Lt. Cantrell explains to Mary Beecher (Constance Towers) the origin of the name "Buffalo soldiers." To stay warm in winter the black troops wore coats and hats made of Buffalo hides. As they thus appeared like buffaloes the Indians dubbed them "Buffalo soldiers." There is another origin (not mentioned in the movie): The name relates to African hair that looked to the Indians like the shaggy buffalo coat in winter. In the feature, quite a few Buffalo soldiers have speaking parts, and future Olympic gold medal winner Rafer Johnson plays an army corporal. Sgt. Skidmore (Juano Hernandez) has a funny line, "Trouble come double, sir." Rutledge has the best line in the movie when he tells Mary Beecher: "Lady, you don't know how hard I'm trying to stay alive."Billie Burke (Glenda the good witch, 1939) was at 76 years, as usual too old for her part as Cornelia, the wife of Col. Otis Wingate (53 year-old Willis Bouchey). Here she shows her real age as she is fluttered and genuinely shocked when a teen-aged girl rides her horse astride and not side-saddle (with legs close together), as some ladies did back in olden times. She is also none too pleased when white women speak to black men. She certainly played the giddy one. Postscript: Obviously after the period of the movie 65 years had to pass before four major events of the civil rights movement occurred: (1) integration of interstate commerce in 1946, (2) desegregation of the armed forces by Pres. Truman, 1948, (3) Brown vs. Topeka Board of education in 1954, and (4) the Montgomery bus strike (1955).

Michael_Elliott Sergeant Rutledge (1960) *** (out of 4) Extremely well-made and dramatic film from John Ford about a black soldier (Woody Strode) accused of killing his superior officer and raping and murdering his daughter. Lt. Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter) was the arrested officer and after spending time with the soldier agrees to defend him of the charges. In the court martial hearing we learn what really happened as Cantrell tries to save the soldier even though he admits being at the scene of the crime. SERGEANT RUTLEDGE, for some reason, never really gets mentioned when people discuss the films of John Ford and that's a shame because it's certainly one of the best films of his later period. I really enjoyed the way Ford told the story as we start off in the court room where we hear the charges and then through flashbacks we see all the events that led up to the murder and the aftermath. On a technical level Ford did a few interesting things here including how he would shoot the court scene in the dark with shadows and then cut to the flashback. This might seem like something minor but it actually has a strong impact. Ford also knew the best things to cut back to the court room scene. A lot of times when flashbacks are mixed into movies they're often done so just to move the story forward. That's not the case here because the director had to perfectly mix them with the court footage and I thought it really did a good job at building and keeping the drama from one to another. Another very strong aspect are the performances with Hunter leading the way. He never really seemed to get enough credit for his acting but the passion on display here is very powerful and I especially enjoyed the way he handled the court scenes. Constance Towers plays an important part as a witness and does a fine job as well. Billie Burke and Willis Bouchey appear in supporting roles. The real star is Strode who delivers an incredibly powerful performance and especially the scene where he must testify and finally breaks down. I don't think I'm overstating things when I say this was without question one of the strongest roles for a black actor at this period in time and Strode certainly did everything he could to make it so memorable. The actor contains a certain dignity and power that leaps off the screen. I think Ford did make one fatal mistake that really killed the film in spots and that's the horrid comic bits that are scattered throughout the film. The humor comes up in such horrid times and it's usually following something dramatic and it really kills everything that the story is trying to capture. Why Ford decided to make the humor so in your face is beyond me. With that said, the incredibly strong performances and strong story are good enough to overcome this one flaw and SERGEANT RUTLEDGE is worth viewing.

tavm Having checked this DVD out of the library several weeks ago, I finally decided to watch it on Memorial Day since it has soldiers as depicted during the post-Civil War era. The title character is played by Woody Strode who is African-American and as such is on trial for the actions involving a dead white girl and her father. Jeffrey Hunter is his lieutenant who's defending him and Constance Towers is his lady friend who also says Strode's innocent. There's also Willis Bouchey as the presiding court-martial president and Carleton Young as the prosecutor. And two more players worth mentioning are Billie Burke-in her last film role-as Bouchey's wife who provides some comic relief and Juano Hernandez-perhaps best known as the lead in Intruder in the Dust-as another ranking officer. All of them are fine under the direction of the great John Ford. Sure, some romantic scenes between Hunter and Towers might not be completely necessary and some sequences lean toward the sentimental side but that's Ford for you. Otherwise, he gets fine atmospheric drama and action and brings a good social message without heavy-handing it making Sergeant Rutledge one of his more underrated works. So on that note, I highly recommend it.

pschneider-4 I wonder which movie the other reviewers saw because the "Seargeant Rutledge" I watched was so bad it was good. Everyone involved with this waste of film should be embarrassed red. Talk about a clinic on weak writing and bad acting. My family was rolling around the floor laughing at the clumsy attempts at drama that came off cornier than anything ol' frozen Walt Disney ever dreamed up. I liked Woody Strode in "Spartacus" and was intrigued by his background as an athlete, so that's why I gave "Seargeant Rutledge" a shot. What a mistake. Where to start? The writing was laughably pathetic and trite, the actors artlessly overdo the cliché drama, and the songs ("Captain Buffalo," for example) are something my kids will be laughing about for years. I can't believe John Ford directed this wreck. I hope he was really off drinking with Sam Peckinpah and maybe this mess was actually an Ed Wood project. Living up to his first name, Strode appears wooden throughout but what a physique! Woody's pecs and biceps and the beautiful shots of Monument Valley all make for nice scenery. But that was it as far as this movie's assets. As for the bad acting, it was close but I'll have to go with Willis Bouchey as the worst of the bunch for his completely amateurish and inept mishandling of the role of Otis Fosgate, who presides over Rutledge's trial. Honorable mention to Jeffrey Hunter, Constance Towers, Billie Burke and Judson Pratt for mangling their parts. Carleton Young actually isn't too bad as the prosecutor, but he, like the rest, has to read and deliver his lines off a script that stinks to high heaven. The sexist scenes of the treatment of the women at the trial is beneath contempt but the confession scene at the end of the trial as well as the very final closing scene with Hunter,Towers and the black soldiers are really the twin icings on this mudcake. Just terrible. An accidental comedy.