Fallen Angel on Location

The Indian maiden struggles and writhes beneath the U.S. cavalrymen. When the rape is over, a trooper unsheathes his bowie knife and cuts off one of her breasts. The soldiers use it as a ball, batting it around with their rifles.

Even the Sharon Tate murderers might have blanched at such a scene --but Ralph Nelson rushes in where cultists fear to tread. In the Mexican Sierras, he is directing Soldier Blue, a film that he modestly describes as "my commentary on war." To shatter any lingering suspense: he is against it. As proof, he is making possibly the most gut-clutching film in history. Based on the Sand Creek Massacre, a notorious 1864 slaughter of Cheyenne warriors, women and children, Soldier Blue is a congeries of atrocities.

In one scene, a Union cavalryman cuts off a Cheyenne's arms, then shoots an old Indian directly in the eye. In another, a wagon runs over a child's legs, severing them with gushes of blood. To provide authenticity for the movie's numerous mutilations, Nelson has hired adult and child amputees. Do-gooders who worry about the misuse of underage amateurs may or may not be soothed by Nelson's reassurances: "We made specific arrangements with the psychologist in charge of the children to make sure we were not going to give them any psychological traumas that they would have to live with the rest of their lives."

No psychologist will be supplied for audiences. They will watch Actor Peter Strauss throw up violently onscreen, a scene that Nelson oversaw with the lapidary instruction: "When you get rid of it all, heavier with the dry heaves." The film's only known star is Candice Bergen, a sometime article writer whose empathy for Indians antedates the film by several years. "The only reason I wanted to do this film," she says, "was because this is the first script I have read where the Indian was not saying 'How' and running around committing atrocities." Evidently she never saw John Ford's 1964 Cheyenne Autumn, or Abraham Polonsky's current Willie Boy, but when you finally and fully realize that Custer died for your sins, a few innocent films must fall.

Perhaps the greatest violence of Soldier Blue is done offscreen--to Director Nelson's image. Five years ago, a righteous Hollywood organization entitled Operation Moral Upgrade awarded him a halo-shaped pin for his work on Lilies of the Field, which featured Sidney Poitier and a gaggle of fluttering nuns. "Apparently," Nelson says, "Mrs. Van New Kirk, the head of the group, recently saw an article about this film. I got a horrible letter drumming me out of the corps. I am no longer an angel. I consider it an honor."

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