The Legend of Walks Far Woman (1982)

Raquel Welch is Walks Far Woman, who finds a new home with the Sioux after being banished by the Blackfeet for avenging her husband’s death.

But she really isn’t accepted by the tribe or her new family until the day she saves Many Scalps (Frank Saledo) from drowning after he slips into the river.

From that point on, she’s the adopted sister of Red Hoop Woman, the wife of Many Scalps, and shares their tepee.

She winds up being romanced by a half-breed trader named Singer (Bradford Dillman), but it’s the handsome brave (Horses Ghost) who captures her heart.

She marries him and has his daughter, only to see him – and their life together – come apart following the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

But Far Walks Woman perseveres, even when she’s forced to start anew for a second time.

Review:

This was a pet project for Raquel. Her own production company co-produced the film and she saw it as a chance to prove her acting ability.

It’s unique in that the story is told from the viewpoint of a young Indian woman during the days when the Sioux still roamed the plains. How many Westerns are done from that vantage point?

But it’s also a flawed film, with too much soap opera drama and a bit too much women’s lib comes to the Sioux village to be taken as seriously as the filmmakers intended.

Apparently, there was considerable drama on the set as well. And NBC didn’t air the film until nearly three years after it was completed (filming took place in Montana in 1979, when Raquel was 39).

When it did air, it wasn’t at the two-part, three-hour TV movie producers envisioned. Nearly all of the footage of Walks Far Woman’s later years (she lived to age 102) wound up on the cutting room floor.

But Raquel does prove she can act, especially in the scene where she gives birth to her daughter and the one in which she worries about the fate of her husband while the Battle of the Little Bighorn plays out off screen.

And, by the end of the film, you wind up caring what happens to Walks Far Woman.

Directed by:
Mel Damski

Cast:
Raquel Welch … Walks Far Woman
Bradford Dillman … Singer
George Clutesi … Old Grandfather
Nick Manuso … Horses Ghost
Frank Salsedo … Many Scalps
Horensia Colorado … Red Hoop Woman
Nick Ramus … Left Hand Bull
Alex Kubik … Elk Hollering
Branscombe Richmond … Big Lake
Dehl Berti … Sitting Bull’s Envoy
Henry Bal … Pipe
Janice Hartan … Janet McKay
Joanelle Romero … Fire Wing
Philip Beaumont … Little Plume
Ralph Brannen … Fat Perrson
Rudy Diaz … Empty Barrel
Geraldine Herns … White Calf

Runtime: 111 min.

Memorable lines:

Young Sioux brave, seeing his grandfather leading Far Walks Woman into camp: “She could use a bath. And some meat on her bones.”

Old grandfather, of Walks Far Woman: “Can she stay with me, Red Hoop? I caught her. Can she stay in my tepee?”

Horses Ghost: “Just last night, the one you call Horses Ghost killed two men and took their horses. He did this all by himself.”
Left Hand Bull: “Horses Ghost, I think you’re talking through the pipe.”

Walks Far Woman: “You have medicine for everything.”
Medicine man: “Not for a horse as crazy as that one.”

Walks Far Woman to Horses Ghost: “There is an old Blackfoot story. When Nape made man and woman, he said: ‘You two will have to get along. The man said: ‘We’ll get along, and I’ll always have the first say.’ The woman smiled and said: ‘I will always have the last say.’”

Walks Far Woman to Horses Ghost: “Some people think you’re too handsome for your own good. And that you’re something of a showoff besides.”

Singer: “I told you long ago, the time would come a time when none of us would remember what it would be like to be wild and free in the prairies.”
Walks Farm Woman: “You were wrong. I’ll remember. Everything.”