Filming The Only Good Indian

‘Indian’ summer

Locally produced film explores hidden history of HaskellToday, the filmmakers are shooting a scene in which the Haskell superintendent (Geer) is addressing the Indian children who have just been pulled off the reservation. The story focuses on one such Kickapoo youth (played by newcomer Winter Fox Frank), who is taken from his family and forcibly sent to Haskell under government orders to integrate into white society.

After being assigned a new name and religion, Frank’s character escapes and attempts to return home, only to be pursued by an American Indian bounty hunter (Wes Studi).

“What we know of the Indian boarding schools all across the country is that they were almost like concentration camps,” says Steve Cadue, the Kickapoo tribal chairman who is on the set at the invitation of the filmmakers.The writer/producer's view:Tom Carmody is the man who first began framing these questions in screenplay form.

The writer and producer of “The Only Good Indian” says he’s always been fascinated by American Indian culture.

“Growing up in Lawrence and attending Broken Arrow school and South Junior High, many of the kids in the classes were Native American, as were many of the kids on my football team at Lawrence High. It was just part of growing up,” Carmody says.

In addition to its emphasis on history, Carmody regarded the project as a new riff on a genre movie.

He says, “When you look at westerns per se, you rarely see the Native American point of view. I can’t even think of one.”Comment:  For Western movies with a Native point of view, see Broken Arrow, Cheyenne Autumn, Dances with Wolves, Geronimo: An American Legend, Crazy Horse, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Into the West, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, among others. This partial list excludes all the movies set in the modern West (e.g., Thunderheart, Dreamkeeper) or the old East (e.g., The Light in the Forest, Pocahontas) with a Native POV.

This kind of movie may not be commonplace, but it's not unheard of either. Carmody is revealing more about himself than about Westerns when he says he can't think of one with a Native POV.

Helpful hint to creative types: Don't suggest you're the first to do something unless you really are the first.