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When chief True Eagel (Carl Mathews) is killed in an Indian Ambush gone
bad, his medicine arrow, the arrow that signifies the chief of the
Sioux before their god, gets lost, & is later found by Major Trent
(Josef Swickard), who keeps it as a souvenir, oblivious to the true
meaning of the thing.
One year later: Trent has just arrrived with his daughter Barbara (Nancy
Caswell) at Fort Henry,
where the bigot general Custer (Frank McGlynn jr) has just taken over
command. Meanwhile Young Wolf (Chief Thundercloud), son of True Eagle, is
desperately searching for the medicine arrow, to finally be appointed
chieftain of the Sioux in front of Manitou, & he is helped by crooked
(alcohol) merchant & overall bandit Blade (Reed Howes), who is
convinced the arrow leads the way to a mighty treasure. From now on he
uses every trick in the book to get the medicine arrow from Trent, &
tries to employ his friend, saloon owner Blelle Meade (Lona Andre) for his
ends ... until she is saved by scout Kit Cardigan (Rex Lease), friend of
the Trents & overall good guy, from a herd of stampeding buffalos,
& from now on is forever grateful to Cardigan ...
That however doesn't stop Blade from trying to
get the arrow, which soon changes hands on a rapid pace, being lost,
found, thrown away, found again & sent to Chicago (it never arrives)
by various bigger & smaller characters, & pretty much everyone is
at one point or another captured by the Sioux & subjected to a divine
challenge - even Young Wolf's own sister, Red Fawn (Dorothy Gulliver). Red
Fawn, an Indian girl with a good heart who has on occasion helped Kit
& Barbara, is the one though who eventually finds the medicine arrow (which was
carelessly dropped by a soldier who didn't have the slightest idea what it
is) & by bringing it to the council of the Indian chiefs, she further
infuriates her brother.
But even after Red Fawn has presented the arrow to the Indian Chiefs'
council, it continues changing owners liek a merry-go-round, even the
Trents come nto possession again for a short while, but eventually, Blade
has sentenced them to death by a befriended crooked judge (Walter James),
& the are only saved, when Roberts (George Chesebro), an ex-army
general gone rogue, has a change of heart, saves them from the firing
squad, & signs up with general Custer (whom he has previously tried to
kill) again.
... & Custer needs all the help he can get, since he has just
started his Indian campaign, where he wants to pursue the Indians
to Little Big Horn & have a little genocide, but somehow he is lured
into an ambush & he is killed with his whole squad.
Kit meawhile has found out that his father was actually killed by
Blade, & the 2 have a shoot-out, which is of course won by Kit ...
& as a reward he gets Barbara Trent in marriage. Red Fawn has
meanwhile rightfully become chieftain since she has ended up with the
medicine arrow after ll.
Several real life Western characters show up in this film, more often
than not only as walk-on appearences. Among them are Sitting Bull (Howling Wolf), Crazy Horse (High Eagle), Buffalo Bill (Ted Adams), Wild
Bill Hickok (Allen Greer), and Calamity Jane (Helen Gibson). Milburn
Morante plays Kit's bearded sidekick. Overly long, slow-moving,
boring, clichéd Western tale, with historical details & characters
tagged on without any real narrative reason. What's really annoying about
the serial though - even if one (like me) doesn't try to demand political
correctness from every frame of celluloid since the beginning of mankind -
is its pejorative treatment of American antives, which goes from
glorifying Custer's Indian campaign as well as teh man himself to several
characters good & bad alike to refer to the native Americans as redskins
& complaining about them entering Belle's saloon through the front
door, while it seems ok for everyone that the whiteskins possess
the medicine arrow, which obviously belongs to the indians, & Red Fawn
gets it in the end from Kit only because she was such a good girl.
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