Seminole (1953)

The story opens with the court martial of Lieutenant Lance Caldwell (Rock Hudson), accused of murder and treason.  As such, the story is mostly a flashback.  It is 1835 in Florida and the Seminoles have refused relocation to Oklahoma.  Major Degan, commander of Fort King and a hero of the Creek War, intends to move the Seminoles or slaughter them.  Lt. Caldwell, newly arrived at Fort King and a native of Florida, suggested peace talks.  Furthermore, he is opposed to an assault against the Seminoles as the swamps will be difficult to navigate.  In no time, he and Major Degan have a contentious relationship.  Degan marches a detachment into the swamps, intending to make a surprise assault on the camp of Osceola (Anthony Quinn).  Of course, Osceola knew they were coming and set a trap, wiping out almost the entirety of Degan's troops (one supposes this was to represent the Dade Massacre that triggered the Second Seminole War).  While a wounded Degan is dragged to safety by Sgt. Magruder (a very young Lee Marvin!), Caldwell is captured by Osceola.  Soon thereafter, Osceola is summoned to a peace talk by Major Degan.  Osceola comes under flag of truce and is immediately imprisoned.

The movie doesn't know what it wants to be.  Is it an action-adventure film?  Is it a story of a love triangle?  Is it a historical epic?  It tries to be all of the above and fails.  There are a few action scenes, the battle in the Seminole village being the big one.  Not much action really.  Revere Muldoon (Barbara Hale) plays the love interest for both Caldwell and Osceola but there's no tension here since she has already chosen Osceola when the story begins.  This feels tacked on and could have been dumped in favor of more development of Osceola.  Much is made of his being a half-breed which is true but is not further explained.  As far as history, this story gets all the specifics of Osceola's life wrong but still has the gist of it.

Osceola was the son of a Creek woman of mixed heritage and a Scottish trader.  Though he is named John in the movie, his given name was Billy Powell.  He was born among the Creek in Alabama but he relocated to the Florida after the Creek War (1813-14) when he was only 9 or 10.  Despite being a Creek with mostly Scottish ancestry, he became a chief among the Seminoles.  He killed an Indian agent named Thompson in 1835 around the same time as the Dade Massacre, which began the 2nd Seminole War.  In 1837, he was summoned to a peace conference under flag of truce.  General Jessup had him arrested and imprisoned.  He died three months later in Fort Moultrie, South Carolina.

Anachronistically, both Degan and Caldwell are armed with revolvers in 1835 though Samuel Colt didn't patent his revolver until 1836.  The soldiers marched with their bayonets fixed which makes it very difficult to reload a musket.  There were many escaped slaves among the Seminoles, called Black Seminoles; none are to be seen here.  Rather than the fictional Kajeck (which isn't a Seminole name as far as I can tell), how about John Horse, a famous Black Seminole of the time.  Or what of Coacoochee or Micanopy?  Did the screenwriter read any sources before naming these other Indians?  Why not have General Jessup instead of the fictional Degan?  Why are there monkey screams in the background?  Someone grabbed jungle sounds from the shelf and thought that was appropriate.  Ha!

Entertaining film but terrible history.  I did like seeing Lee Marvin and James Best (best know for his role of Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane in The Dukes of Hazzard) early in their careers.