Cinema: Indian Exodus

Cheyenne Autumn has everything it takes to make a great western epic, except greatness. In her book based on a bleak episode of American history, Mari Sandoz re-created the ordeal of 286 Cheyenne Indians, stung by the indignities of exile on a reservation, who in 1878 fought and starved and struggled through a 1,500-mile journey from Oklahoma's Indian Territory to their homeland in eastern Montana. En route, with U.S. Army units ever at their heels, they were bedeviled by bad weather, bitter dissension, and the white man's cruelty. In this wayward, 3-hr. movie...

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