When Natives Americans Were Indians- “Foxfire” With Jeff Chandler and Jane Russell (1955)

By Sam Lowell

Back in the black and white television days of the 1950s when I was growing up the local kids, maybe kids everywhere, worked under the motto that “the only good injun was a dead one.” We bought with all arms into the idea that the Indian, the Native American, the indigenous peoples, take your pick were savages who not only needed to be tamed and obliterated but such action was justified since they took scalps with glee, raped women and girls, white women and girls,  and took whoever they wanted as captives and slaves. Oh sure, there was an occasional good one like the Lone Ranger’s companion Tonto but he was really just a Native American equivalent of the black Uncle Tom. Mostly though we saw Indians as cigar store figures and beneath our own dignities. Then along comes a film like Foxfire from that same 1950s period and throws the stereotypes into a little disarray. We would have rejected had we been allowed to see the film the notion of the Indian, really a half-breed as having any positive qualities and certainly have rejected the Technicolor portrayal of such people who were better demons in black and white.

Of course Hollywood, 1950s Hollywood could get away with a half-baked story line and slight tip of the hat in multiculturalism which it could not today. In that sense the film like a lot of old-time films I review is a “slice of life” of the times, or of how Hollywood’s lenses saw the social times. More the latter than the former here since this storyline is “confused” by the ever present boy meets girl or better in this case girl meets boy angle which has anchored more films that any one person could shake a stick at.         

Amanda played by buxom Jane Russell is slumming in Arizona for her mother’s health in the days when people could breath the air there when her car developed a flat on the inevitable 1950s long stretch nowhere Arizona back roads. After some time along comes ruggedly handsome but the moody sullen type Jonathan played by Jeff Chandler who as far as I know did not have any Indian blood and “passed” based on those rugged good looks and a deep tan offset by that granite grey hair. He offers Amanda a ride to get help and that starts what would be an extremely fast Amanda-generated romance which ends up in a very quick marriage not usual in a time when shacking up without more, at least in films, was frowned upon.

That whirlwind marriage is where everything starts to fall apart. The biggest tension beyond Jeff’s taciturn nature is that he is extremely ambivalent about the Apache part of his heritage. Less so about his white father’s professorial leavings. Apparently Amanda had no serious problems going down in class to live in a dusty mining town which is where Jonathan makes his kale. What got her down eventually was that Johnny did not confide in her, didn’t let her help him in his dream of finding El Dorado or the local version of that old hoary tale where there was gold down in the earth just waiting to be found by an enterprising young mining engineer like Jonathan.

With a few glimpses of the antagonism and prejudices against Apache by the local white pillars of the community and Jonathan’s tough road of straddling two cultures the Amanda-Jonathan marriage begins to fall apart, begins to not be made in heaven. A miscarriage by Amanda though kind of brings things to a head and the two part. Not so fast though remember this is 1950s Hollywood and nice endings to romantic dramas and so in the end Jonathan lightens up a bit and shows a little emotional attachment to Amanda after treating her like some squaw for most of the film. That reconciliation made easier by Jonathan actually finding that pot of gold in those ancient Arizona hills. Like I said strictly a look at what Hollywood thought about the Indian question and interracial romance in the 1950s.