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- Title
The "Ache for Home" in Anthony Mann's Devil's Doorway (1950).
- Authors
Hearne, Joanna
- Abstract
This article examines the motion picture, Devil's Doorway, directed by Anthony Mann, which tackled the possibility of cross-racial romance during the post-Civil War period. In the year 1950, a post-war revival of the Western genre allegedly marked a major shift in the way the U.S. motion picture industry represented Native Americans, with the release of Delmer Daves' color production of the film Broken Arrow and Anthony Mann's first Western film, Devil's Doorway. Both films examine and then negate the possibility of cross-racial romance, set that romance in the immediate post-Civil War period, and feature a male hero who is a returning Civil War veteran. Although the film has received considerably less critical attention than Broken Arrow, it is by far the more radical film in its depiction of frontier politics. In addition, the film functions as a drama of re-integration and disintegration, in which the returning war veteran disrupts the already-uneasy balance of power in his home community. The film has been discussed primarily as an allegory for early civil rights, but resonates with the problems facing returning Native American veterans after World War II, including poor reservation conditions, chronic local prejudice, racist and out-moded government supervision, land use crises, and, most importantly, a federal assault on tribal lands, sovereignty and treaty rights.
- Subjects
UNITED States; MOTION picture evaluation; DEVIL'S Doorway (Film); MANN, Anthony; MISCEGENATION; AMERICAN Civil War, 1861-1865
- Publication
Film & History (03603695), 2003, Vol 33, Issue 1, p18
- ISSN
0360-3695
- Publication type
Entertainment Review
- DOI
10.1353/flm.2003.a396036