UCLA Film & Television Archive and Autry Museum of the American West present

Save the Man presents an assembly of titles showcasing an overlooked trend in pre-Code Hollywood: studio films that openly confronted the contemporary consequences of this nation’s fraught history with Indigenous peoples after they were granted citizenship in 1924. Featuring a melodrama about a mixed-race woman coming to terms with her identity, a tale of Native Alaskan revenge, a doomed Navajo Nation bordertown romance, and a violent uprising led by a Wild West Show performer against a corrupt government, these four forgotten films each reflect the era’s affinity for breaking on-screen taboos and imperfect examinations of contemporaneous prejudices. They stand out as being both of their time and beyond the studio filmmaking of today.

Notes written and program curated by Adam Piron.

Special thanks to our community partners: The Chapter House, LA Skins Fest.

Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.

Massacre

U.S., 1934

Chief Joe Thunder Horse (Richard Barthelmess) is the top draw in the Wild West show he tours with, and he won’t let anyone forget it. Whether it’s speeding his gaudy sports car, bedding white women or demanding higher pay, Joe unapologetically lives life fast — until word reaches him from the reservation that his father is dying. He returns home to find his community in disarray and under the rule of a corrupt white government official and a group of con men. Pushed to breaking point, he leads his tribe to revolt against their oppressors in an explosive, damning finale.

16mm, b&w, 70 min. Director: Alan Crosland. Writer: Sheridan Gibney, Ralph Block, Robert Gessner. With: Richard Barthelmess, Ann Dvorak, Henry O'Neill.