Run of the Arrow / Merrill's Marauders

RUN OF THE ARROW, 1957, Warner Bros., 86 min. Rod Steiger is an embittered Confederate soldier who joins an Indian tribe and takes a Native American bride (Sarita Montiel) rather than acknowledge the Union. The great cast features Ralph Meeker, Brian Keith and Charles Bronson. One of Fuller’s richest, most surprising movies.

IB Technicolor Print: MERRILL’S MARUADERS, 1962, Warner Bros., 98 min. One of the best of director Sam Fuller’s war pictures follows the suicidal campaign of 3,000 American soldiers fighting behind the Japanese lines in 1944, led by Brigadier General Frank Merrill (Jeff Chandler). Soon after the film wrapped, Chandler tragically died on the operating table during a back operation – he never got to see his finest performance. Fuller shot the film on location in the Philippines and, although Warner Bros. excised a final scene of soldiers shooting each other in a chaos of “friendly fire,” the picture remains amazingly powerful.