# Broken Arrow (1950 film)
**Broken Arrow** is a 1950 American Western directed by Delmer Daves and produced by Julian Blaustein for Twentieth Century-Fox, in which a former Union Army soldier, Tom Jeffords ([James Stewart](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-stewart)), makes peace with the Chiricahua Apache leader Cochise ([Jeff Chandler](https://www.edgepedia.org/jeff-chandler)) in 1870s Arizona. It is recognized as the first major Hollywood Western of the sound era to portray Native Americans sympathetically, and it opened a cycle of pro-Indian Westerns that ran through the early 1960s.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) • [2](https://www.afi.com/news/broken-arrow-afi-catalog-spotlight/) • [3](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | World premieres in New York, Tulsa, OK, and Broken Arrow, OK on 21 July 1950; Technicolor, 92–93 minutes, 10 reels[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) |
| Source | Elliott Arnold's novel *Blood Brother*; working titles were Blood Brother, Arrow, and War Paint[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) |
| Cast | James Stewart (Tom Jeffords), Jeff Chandler (Cochise), Debra Paget (Sonseeahray), Basil Ruysdael (General Oliver Howard), Will Geer (Ben Slade)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) |
| Screenwriter | Written by the blacklisted Albert Maltz, with screen credit going to Michael Blankfort[4](https://www.ourmidland.com/movies/article/DVD-REVIEWS-BROKEN-ARROW-2568249.php) |
| Academy Awards | Three nominations at the 23rd Academy Awards: Supporting Actor (Chandler), Color Cinematography (Ernest Palmer), and Screenplay (Maltz)[5](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1951) |
| Box office | Seventh highest-grossing picture of 1950, earning nearly $4 million domestically[2](https://www.afi.com/news/broken-arrow-afi-catalog-spotlight/) |
| Honors | Golden Globe for Best Film Promoting International Understanding, awarded to director Delmer Daves[2](https://www.afi.com/news/broken-arrow-afi-catalog-spotlight/) |
| Legacy | Spawned an ABC television series, *Broken Arrow*, 1956–1958[6](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236822331_Television_Westerns_Termination_and_Public_Relations_An_Analysis_of_the_ABC_Series_Broken_Arrow_1956-1958) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and historical basis
The story is set in 1870, after ten years of war between white settlers and the Chiricahua Apache in the Arizona territory. Tom Jeffords, a former Union Army soldier turned prospector, is summoned to Tucson by Colonel Bernall. On the way he finds and treats an injured fourteen-year-old Apache boy, Machogee, who gives him a necklace to ward off sickness before returning to his mother.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW)
Jeffords enters Apache territory alone to seek peace and forms a friendship with Cochise, eventually marrying the chief's kinswoman Sonseeahray. Overcoming hostility on both sides and the murder of his wife, Jeffords brokers a peace treaty between the Apache and the United States government, leading General Oliver Howard to Cochise's camp for the final peace.[3](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW)
In an author's note to the novel, Elliott Arnold stated that the main events were true: the historical Jeffords ran the mail, went up alone to see Cochise, became his friend and blood brother, and led General Howard to Cochise's camp.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) Like most Westerns of the period, the film takes liberties with its historical material, including the portrayal of Cochise.[3](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C)
## Production
Production ran from 3 June to 2 August 1949, with location work in [Lone Pine, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/lone-pine-california), and in Sedona and the Coconino National Forest in Arizona. The film was shot in [Technicolor](https://www.edgepedia.org/technicolor) with [Western Electric](https://www.edgepedia.org/western-electric) sound recording, photographed by Ernest Palmer and edited by J. Watson Webb Jr., with production design by Lyle Wheeler and Albert Hogsett.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW)
The screenplay was written by Albert Maltz, one of the Hollywood Ten, but because he was blacklisted the screen credit went to Michael Blankfort; the [Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences](https://www.edgepedia.org/academy-of-motion-picture-arts-and-sciences) later recognized Maltz as the writer, and its records list him as the [Screenplay](https://www.edgepedia.org/screenplay) nominee.[4](https://www.ourmidland.com/movies/article/DVD-REVIEWS-BROKEN-ARROW-2568249.php) • [5](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1951) Producer Darryl F. Zanuck, Fox's vice-president in charge of production, complained in story development that Jeffords was too "noble and untainted" and that his motivation for going to Cochise was unclear. Daves related the story to producer Julian Blaustein, who devised the title Broken Arrow as the only one that would "symbolically represent our entire story."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW)
## Representation of the Apache
The film's significance rests on how it depicted its Apache characters. It showed them residing in wikiups (dome-shaped dwellings of brush and mud, unlike tipis) rather than tipis, depicted Apache customs including the girls' puberty rite and a social dance performed by members of the White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona's Fort Apache Reservation, and had the Apache characters speak standard, if formal, English rather than the broken pidgin English conventional at the time.[3](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C) The film depicts whites, not Indians, as scalpers, and the Apache spare Jeffords' life because he had aided an injured Apache boy.[4](https://www.ourmidland.com/movies/article/DVD-REVIEWS-BROKEN-ARROW-2568249.php)
The casting followed Hollywood's standard practices of the era, and this became the film's main point of criticism: Cochise was played by the Caucasian Jeff Chandler and Sonseeahray by [Debra Paget](https://www.edgepedia.org/debra-paget), while the Canadian Mohawk actor [Jay Silverheels](https://www.edgepedia.org/jay-silverheels), a real Apache-country Native in the industry's terms, was cast as the bad-guy Geronimo.[3](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C) • [4](https://www.ourmidland.com/movies/article/DVD-REVIEWS-BROKEN-ARROW-2568249.php)
## Reception and influence
The film was a commercial success, ranking seventh among 1950's pictures with nearly $4 million in domestic earnings.[2](https://www.afi.com/news/broken-arrow-afi-catalog-spotlight/) Reviews generally praised its effort to depict the Apaches as rounded people; the Hollywood Reporter wrote that it "accomplishes the miracle of portraying the American Indian as a person much more than the stereotyped rug peddler or vicious savage," while [Fortnight](https://www.edgepedia.org/fortnight) praised its case that the Apaches were "a nation fighting honorably for survival" but found the film substituted "earnestness for profundity and romance in lieu of honest drama."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) Bosley Crowther of The New York Times objected that the Apache characters acted "like denizens of the musical comedy stage" and wrote, "We cannot accept this picture as either an exciting or reasonable account of the attitudes and ways of American Indians. They merit justice, but not such patronage."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) • [7](https://jeffarnoldswest.com/2021/06/broken-arrow-fox-1950-d48/)
**Genre influence.** Although it was not the first post-war Western to take a compassionate view of American Indians, John Ford's *Fort Apache* (1948) and *She Wore a Yellow Ribbon* (1949) preceded it, Broken Arrow is credited with inaugurating a cycle of "pro-Indian" Westerns that ran from the early 1950s to the early 1960s, including *Apache* (1954), *[Broken Lance](https://www.edgepedia.org/broken-lance)* (1954), *White Feather* (1955), *[Run of the Arrow](https://www.edgepedia.org/run-of-the-arrow)* (1957), *Flaming Star* (1960), and *[Cheyenne Autumn](https://www.edgepedia.org/cheyenne-autumn)* (1964).[3](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C) Anthony Mann's *Devil's Doorway*, released a few months later in 1950, is regularly named alongside it as marking the genre's new sensitivity toward Native Americans.[8](https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_film.cfm?eraid=1&mediatypeid=1&psid=2948) The Association on American Indian Affairs' film committee cited it as one of the first films since *The Vanishing American* to attempt a serious portrayal of the Indian side of American history.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW)
The property continued in other media. Screen Directors' Playhouse broadcast a radio version on 5 September 1951 with Stewart, Chandler, and Paget,[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW) and ABC aired a *Broken Arrow* television series from 1956 to 1958, with John Lupton as Indian agent Tom Jeffords and [Michael Ansara](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-ansara) as Cochise; the series traded on the film's reputation for historical accuracy while, scholars have argued, serving as a public-relations vehicle during the Cold War era of federal Indian termination policy.[6](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236822331_Television_Westerns_Termination_and_Public_Relations_An_Analysis_of_the_ABC_Series_Broken_Arrow_1956-1958)
Modern assessments retain both halves of the verdict. The film is honored for foregrounding Native American humanity at a time when Hollywood rarely did, and examined for its limits: white actors in the leading Native roles, an idealized version of history, and a romance that critics of the period already found patronizing.[3](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C) • [9](https://theautry.org/events/film/what-western-broken-arrow-1950) On contemporary aggregate sites it holds 91% on the Tomatometer from 11 reviews and 7.1/10 on IMDb from about 11,000 user ratings.[10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003119-broken_arrow) • [11](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042286/)
## References
1. [Broken Arrow (1950), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26247-BROKEN-ARROW)
2. [BROKEN ARROW – AFI Catalog Spotlight, American Film Institute (July 7, 2025)](https://www.afi.com/news/broken-arrow-afi-catalog-spotlight/)
3. ["Don't Be Too Quick to Dismiss Them: Authorship and the Westerns of Delmer Daves," ReFocus: The Films of Delmer Daves, Edinburgh University Press, 2016](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/refocus-the-films-of-delmer-daves/dont-be-too-quick-to-dismiss-them-authorship-and-the-westerns-of-delmer-daves/A138863D6777EACDB9EC000E2EB92F3C)
4. [Walter Addiego, "DVD Reviews / Broken Arrow," July 29, 2007](https://www.ourmidland.com/movies/article/DVD-REVIEWS-BROKEN-ARROW-2568249.php)
5. [The 23rd Academy Awards (1951), Oscars.org](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1951)
6. ["Television Westerns, Termination, and Public Relations: An Analysis of the ABC Series Broken Arrow, 1956–1958"](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236822331_Television_Westerns_Termination_and_Public_Relations_An_Analysis_of_the_ABC_Series_Broken_Arrow_1956-1958)
7. [Jeff Arnold's West, "Broken Arrow (Fox, 1950)"](https://jeffarnoldswest.com/2021/06/broken-arrow-fox-1950-d48/)
8. [Digital History, University of Houston](https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_film.cfm?eraid=1&mediatypeid=1&psid=2948)
9. [What Is a Western? Broken Arrow (1950), Autry Museum of the American West](https://theautry.org/events/film/what-western-broken-arrow-1950)
10. [Broken Arrow (1950), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003119-broken_arrow)
11. [Broken Arrow (1950), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042286/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works) › Westerns before 1980 › Released 1930 to 1960*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license