Save the Man

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 its 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.