Broken Arrow

Set in 1870s Arizona, Broken Arrow follows Tom Jeffords, a former scout who has grown weary of the long and bloody conflict between white settlers and the Chiricahua Apaches. After tending to a wounded Apache youth, he gains a measure of trust among the tribe and, against the warnings of other whites, seeks out their leader, Cochise, to argue for peace. Their negotiations produce an agreement allowing the mail to pass safely through Apache territory, and the two men form a close bond. Jeffords also falls in love with an Apache woman, Sonseeahray, and marries her according to the tribe's customs. The arrangement, however, is fragile, and resentment among settlers who prefer war to peace threatens what has been built.

Delmer Daves directed the film, which sits between Dark Passage and Demetrius and the Gladiators among the titles he made. Albert Maltz wrote the screenplay, and Julian Blaustein produced it for 20th Century Fox. James Stewart plays Jeffords, with Jeff Chandler as Cochise, Debra Paget as Sonseeahray, Basil Ruysdael as General Oliver Howard, Will Geer as Ben Slade and Joyce Mackenzie as Terry. The credited cast runs to 42 names.

The film took about 4 million dollars at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.1 from around 11,000 votes, while on TMDB its rating is 6.7 from roughly 229 votes, so the audience scores from the two sources sit in a similar range.