Children of the Dust (1995)

Sidney Poitier is gunman turned cavalry scout Gypsy Smith, who rescues a young Indian boy when his camp comes under attack.

He delivers the youth to kindly settler John Maxwell (Michael Moriarty). He willingly takes him into his home to the delight of daughter Rachel, who gives the boy the white name of Corby.

While Corby is growing up in the Maxwell household, Gypsy takes a job guiding a wagon train of black settlers to the Oklahoma Land Rush.

And once they’ve formed a town, he becomes their sheriff, partly because a blossoming romance with a woman named Drusilla (Regina Taylor) has him rethinking his objections to ever settling down.

Trouble arises when two young boys from the town are accused of raping a young white girl. The town comes under attack by Klansman. They wind up catching and mutilating Gypsy.

Trouble of a different sort has developed on the Maxwell homestead, where the years have drawn Corby (Billy Wirth) and Rachel (Joanna Going) closer together.

They become lovers, with plans to marry, until Rachel’s father finds them together and reminds them of how the white world would view such a union and any children born from it.

So it’s off to finishing school for Rachel. Corby returns to his parents’ tribe and takes the name White Wolf, no longer interested in a future in the white man’s world.

But Gypsy, Rachel and Corby will be drawn back together.

Recovered from his wounds, Gypsy sets out on the vengeance trail. And one of his targets is Shelby Hornbeck, the rich former southerner who has talked Rachel into becoming his wife.

Sidney Poitier as Gypsy Smith, the black gunfighter in Children of the Dust (1995)

Joanna Going as Rachel Maxwell, helping a wounded Corby White in Children of the Dust (1995)

Review:

A somewhat sappy ending aside, this is a superior, must-see TV Western, thanks largely to sterling performances by Poitier and Going.

As Shelby Hornbeck, Hart Bochner makes for a suitable villain. Michael Moriarty is perfect as the father, gentle in his ways, but always wondering if he’s doing the right thing, especially after his wife commits suicide.

Farrah Fawcett plays that role, in a brief but impressive performance as a former beauty haunted by the barren plains of the West. Jim Caviezel plays her son Dexter, who has none of his sister’s charitable feelings toward those of a different skin color.

It’s a movie all about racism, but that avoids becoming preachy because the viewer gets so wrapped in the fate of Gypsy and in what will happen to Corby and Rachel, the star-crossed young lovers.

This was originally aired as a two-part TV mini-series. Be sure to watch that version, not the cut up, two-hour VHS re-release under the title “A Good Day to Die.”

Billy Wirth as Corby White, being told he can never have Rachel as a bride in Children of the Dust (1995)

Regina Taylor as Drusilla, falling for a gunslinger named Gypsy Smith in Children of the Dust (1995)

Directed by:
David Greene

Cast:
Sidney Poitier … Gypsy Smith
Joanna Going … Rachel
Billy Wirth … Corby / White Wolf
Hart Bochner … Shelby Hornbeck
Regina Taylor … Drusilla
Michael Moriarty … John Maxwell
Jim Caviezel … Dexter Maxwell
Shirley Knight … Aunt Bertha
Grace Zabriskie … Rose
Farrah Fawcett … Nora Maxwell
John Pyper-Ferguson … Sonny Boys
Byron Chief Moon … Chief Walks the Clouds
Kevin McNulty … Sheriff Harriman
Katharine Isabelle … Young Rachel
Mitchelle LaPlante … Young Corby
Zachary Savard … Young Dexter

Runtime: 175 min.

aka: A Good Day to Die

Hart Bochner as Shelby Hornbeck, the rich former Southerner who courts Rachel Maxwell in Children of the Dust (1995)

Michael Moriarity as John Maxwell, the man who opens his home to an Indian youth in Children of the Dust (1995)

Memorable lines:

Gyspy Smith to young Corby: “I ain’t nothin’ but a gunslinger. I can’t teach you nothin’ but how to kill people. You got a chance to learn books; that’s where the power is. Better than guns. You let them turn you into a white man. You learn books. You learn how they turn words into power.”

Nora, fretting over Rachel again: “It was the Indian milk.”
John Maxwell: “Now don’t start on that.”
Nora: “I never should have let her suckle from that Indian woman. Turned her from me.”
John: “You were sickly, Nora. You couldn’t feed her. That woman had to save her life.”

John Maxwell to Corby: “You’re an Indian. The last thing in this world you’ll be allowed to have is a white woman.”

Corby to Drusilla: “You can teach me any time. Ain’t no shame in being ignorant. Only shame is staying ignorant.”

Gypsy Smith to Drusilla on the eve of the land rush: “Well, lady, tomorrow, you’re going to see a spectacle … a spectacle of human greed.”

Rachel Maxwell, meeting Corby after being away at finishing school: “You’ve become so … Indian.”
Corby White: “And you’ve become so white. White icing on a cake.”

Gypsy Smith: “Killin’ ain’t even begun yet. When I’m well, them Kluxes better give their souls to God because their mortal power belongs to Gypsy Smith.”

Corby: “Why won’t you call me White Wolf. It’s the name my father gave me. That’s serious.”
Rachel: “I gave you the name Corby. That’s serious too.”

Farrah Fawcett as Nora Maxwell, a woman unsuited for the frontier in Children of the Dust (1995)

Jim Caviezel as Dexter Maxwell, pleading with Rachel on Shelby Hornbeck’s behalf in Children of the Dust (1995)

Joanna Going as Rachel Maxwell, defending her childhood friend, Corby White, in Children of the Dust (1995)

Billy Wirth as Corby White, returning to his father’s Indian ways in Childen of the Dust (1995)

SIdney Poitier as Gypsy Smith, out to settle a score in Children of the Dust (1995)

Joanna Going as Rachel and Billy Wirth as Corby, facing an uncertain future in Children of the Dust (1995)