The Invaders (1912)

Francis Ford and / or Thomas H. Ince: The Invaders (1912), starring Francis Ford.

THE INVADERS (New York Motion Picture Co., US, 1912). Producer: Thomas H. Ince. Director: Francis Ford and / or Thomas H. Ince. Writer: C. Gardner Sullivan.
    Cast: Francis Ford (Colonel James Bryson, the cavalry commandant), Ethel Grandin (his daughter), Anna Little (Sky Star), Art Acord (telegraph operator), Ray Myers, Luther Standing Bear and other unidentified Oglala Sioux. 35 mm, 3 reels, 2880 ft, 41 min (18 fps). Preserved by the Library of Congress.
    English intertitles.
    The Invaders (1912) online at the Internet Archive.
    Grand piano: Phil Carli.
    Viewed at Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Treasures from the American Archives, 10 Oct 2004.   

Scott Simmon (GCM): "Thomas Ince’s The Invaders is one of the first great Westerns, a broken-treaty tale whose power owes much to its Native American actors. At three reels its portrayal of reluctant U.S. Cavalry troops forced to battle Sioux and Cheyenne was an epic in 1912, when most films still squeezed their stories into a single reel."

"The change from earlier Westerns was partly in the scale of production. Soon after Ince arrived in Los Angeles in 1911 to take over the New York Motion Picture Company’s Westerns, the company made a deal with “The Miller Bros. 101 Ranch Real Wild West Show” to employ its performers, and leased twenty-eight square miles above Santa Monica. The impressive location—soon known as “Inceville”—could pass for the Dakotas when the camera was pointed away from the surf. Among the 101 Ranch employees were some fifty Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota."

"The Invaders allots equal time for personal dramas among the Native Americans, and is structured through parallel plots within the cavalry post and Sioux village: In each a father must approve a suitor for his daughter. The simple story derives some of its force by combining the two key American fables of self-sacrifice on the frontier: A Custer story (a contingent of the Seventh Cavalry is again slaughtered) is joined to a Pocahontas story (a chief’s daughter again saves a white community)."

"For all the conventionality in The Invaders’ portrait of Indians—who are ultimately both savage and sentimentalized—the film retains surprises. Audiences might presume its title will refer to some rampaging redskins, but it is the Eastern surveyors for the transcontinental railroad, laughing off cavalry protection and treaty terms, who will prove to be “the invaders.”" – Scott Simmon (GCM)

AA: A powerful Western, with the rough and unvarnished touch of reality typical for Francis Ford. The film is the tragedy of a Sioux maid, comparable with Griffith. (Actually, as Scott Simmon observes, a double tragedy: Pocahontas and Custer). She tried to warn the white surveyors. A full battle breaks out. The Sioux maid alerts the cavalry with her last ounce of strength. The massacre has already taken place. Brutal footage of naked, bloody corpses of surveyors. Escalation to a full war: the Sioux vs. the cavalry. The Cheyenne to the rescue via smoke signals. They crush the cavalry, attack the garrison and set the telegraph pole on fire. Too late! The Sioux girl meant to be a hostage is dead. Good action passages. The end: the last bullet, the last minute rescue. A strong ending in the middle of the Sioux. Finis. A fair print, not prime, a dupe impact, mediocre, with some images of more vivid quality.