SW076 Trio of 1950s’ Hollywood Films Carve Fanciful Views of Everglades Struggle to Remove Seminole

<p></p> <p>Listeners to this Seminole Wars podcast understand the rich scenic cinematic possibilities in telling the story of this long Florida-based conflict. The film makers in Hollywood did, too, back in the 1950s anyway.</p> <p>Distant Drums, Seminole, and Naked in the Sun are three films taking some aspect of the war and presenting a fanciful view with great liberties to tell a compelling narrative.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Yellowneck, a fourth film, in what we might dub a Seminole Swamp series of movies, focuses on Confederate deserters trudging through the Everglades and meeting hostile Seminoles as they pass through their reservation to the Florida coast.</p> <p></p> <p> </p> <p>Two others, Seminole Uprising and War Arrow, portray the Seminoles in Oklahoma and Texas as antagonistic or supporting of the U.S. Army. But although they feature actors purportedly playing Seminoles, the plots of either film could have proceeded without trouble had any other American Tribe been selected.</p> <p></p> <p> In this episode, autodidact and cinephile Jesse Marshall returns to give us the run down on the good, the bad, and the ugly of these films, with greatest focus on the three films actually set in the Seminole Wars. They featured journeymen actors but also some genuine box officer superstars – Gary Cooper, Rock Hudson, Anthony Quinn. None were great films but they all harbored some redeeming value. Jesse Marshall explains why and also why Hollywood hasn’t made a Seminole Wars film in nearly three quarters of a century.   </p> <p> Naked in the Sun is based on the Frank Slaughter novel, The Warrior. Also informing its story is the play, Florida Aflame.</p> <p> </p> <p></p> <p> Hollywood has not treated the Dade march as a fully focused movie, despite its vast cinematic possibilities and its compelling human story. Although Naked in the Sun portrayed an aspect of Dade's march, it lasted all of about 5 minutes on the screen.  Jesse Marshall suggests that Hollywood could do well by using Frank L