Sergeant Rutledge is a 1960 American Technicolor Western film directed by John Ford and starring Jeffrey Hunter, Constance Towers, Woody Strode and Billie Burke. The title was also used for the novelization published in the same year. Six decades later, the film continues to attract attention because it was one of the first mainstream films in the U.S. to treat racism frankly and to give a starring role to an African-American actor. In 2017 critic Richard Brody observed that "The greatest American political filmmaker, John Ford, relentlessly dramatized, in his Westerns, the mental and historical distortions arising from the country’s violent origins—including its legacy of racism, which he confronted throughout his career, nowhere more radically than in Sergeant Rutledge."
The film starred Strode as Sergeant Rutledge, a black first sergeant in a colored regiment of the United States Cavalry. At a U.S. Army fort in the early 1880s, he is being tried by a court-martial for the rape and murder of a white girl as well as for the murder of the girl's father, who was the commanding officer of the fort. The story of these events is recounted through several flashbacks.
Plot
The film revolves around the fictional court-martial of 1st Sgt. Braxton Rutledge (Strode) of the 9th U.S. Cavalry in 1881. At the time, the United States Army maintained four colored regiments, including the 9th Cavalry.
His defense is handled by Lt. Tom Cantrell (Hunter), who is also Rutledge's troop officer. The story is told through a series of flashbacks, expanding the testimony of witnesses as they describe the events following the murder of Rutledge's Commanding Officer, Major Custis Dabney, and the rape and murder of Dabney's daughter Lucy, for which Rutledge is the accused. Mary Beecher, a woman in whom Cantrell shows romantic interest, gives evidence in Rutledge's favor, noting that he saved her life when Apaches were attacking.
Circumstantial evidence suggests that Rutledge committed the crimes. Worse still, Rutledge deserts after the killings. Lt. Cantrell tracks Rutledge and arrests him. Subsequently, Rutledge escapes from captivity during an Indian raid. Aware of an impending ambush, he returns to warn his fellow cavalrymen and fights off the attack with them.
He is then brought back in to face a court-martial. A guilty verdict from the all-white military court appears inevitable, and the locals appear to enjoy the spectacle. Cantrell ultimately secures a confession when examining Chandler Hubble, the father of a young local man who was interested in Lucy, and Rutledge is exonerated. Cantrell and Beecher happily look forward to a life together.
Cast
Jeffrey Hunter as 1st Lt. Tom Cantrell, 9th Cavalry (counsel for the defense). Hunter's role in Sergeant Rutledge was the last of his three roles in films directed by Ford. He was previously cast in The Searchers and The Last Hurrah. Constance Towers as Mary Beecher. Towers had also been cast in Ford's previous film, The Horse Soldiers. Billie Burke as Mrs. Cordelia Fosgate. Her part in Sergeant Rutledge was her final film role. Woody Strode as First Sergeant Braxton Rutledge, C Troop 9th US Cavalry. Sergeant Rutledge was the first of four films Strode made with John Ford. In an interview, Strode recalled how he was cast for the role: "The big studios wanted an actor like Sidney [Poitier] or [Harry] Belafonte," recalled Strode. "And this is not being facetious, but Mr. Ford defended me; and I don't know that this is going on. He said, "Well, they're not tough enough to do what I want Sergeant Rutledge to be." Juano Hernández as Sgt. Matthew Luke Skidmore, C Troop 9th US Cavalry Willis Bouchey as Lt. Col. Otis Fosgate, 9th Cavalry (president of the court-martial) Carleton Young as Capt. Shattuck, 14th Infantry (prosecutor) Judson Pratt as 2nd Lt. Mulqueen, 9th Cavalry (court-martial board member) (uncredited) Chuck Hayward as Capt. Dickinson, 9th US Cavalry. Rafer Johnson as Cpl. Krump, C Troop 9th US Cavalry Toby Michaels as Lucy Dabney (uncredited) Jack Mower as Courtroom Spectator (uncredited) Fred Libby as Chandler Hubble (uncredited)