Cheyenne Autumn (1964)

Richard Widmark: Capt. Thomas Archer

Photos 

Quotes 

• Capt. Thomas Archer : Dull Knife! Little Wolf! What happened today changes nothing. The Indian Bureau is still pledged to provide you with adequate clothing and rations. And you're still pledged to abide by the law. Remember that!

  Little Wolf : We are asked to remember much. The white man remembers nothing.

• Capt. Thomas Archer : Have you ever seen a Cheyenne?

  Deborah Wright : Of course I have.

  Capt. Thomas Archer : No you haven't! All you've ever seen is reservation Indians looking pitiful as fish out of water. But give them a chance and they're the greatest fighters in the world. Will you listen to me? It takes a blue coat to make a white man a soldier... but a Cheyenne is a soldier from the first slap on his butt. War is his life. He's fierce, he's smart... and he's meaner than sin!

• Sr. First Sergeant : [a Cossack]  kills Poles just because they're Poles. Like we're trying to kill Indians just because they're Indians.

  Capt. Thomas Archer : Come on, Wichowski. You fought Indians before!

  Sr. First Sergeant : I fought Indians who wanted to fight me, not just some poor blanket-heads trying to go home!

• [narrating] 

  Capt. Thomas Archer : But this wasn't just another day to the Cheyenne. Far from their homeland, as out of place in this desert as eagles in a cage, their three great chiefs prayed over the Sacred Bundles that at last the promises made to them more than a year ago would today be honored. The promises that had led them to give up their own way of life in their own green and fertile country... 1500 miles north.

• Capt. Thomas Archer : Mr. Scott! I told you to cover that flank!

  2nd Lt. Scott : I'm sorry, sir.

  Capt. Thomas Archer : From now on, you don't scratch until I itch! Is that clear?

• Capt. Thomas Archer : Scott, tell me something.

  2nd Lt. Scott : Sir?

  Capt. Thomas Archer : What put the blood in your eyes?

  2nd Lt. Scott : It's just a private matter, sir.

  Capt. Thomas Archer : Nothing that affects an officer's conduct is private.

• [narrating] 

  Capt. Thomas Archer : And so when the Nation was safe, the Sacred Bundle, symbol of the Chief of Chiefs, was passed on. For no one could carry it who had shed the blood of another Cheyenne.

• Capt. Thomas Archer : You claim to be a doctor. You gonna let him put those women and children in a warehouse at 10 below zero? What are you gonna do about it?

  Dr. O'Carberry : What are you gonna do about it?

• Capt. Thomas Archer : Remember, Mr. Scott, the trick to being brave is not to be too brave.