What makes it different from others?

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Devil's Doorway is an indescribably sad movie. It is directed by Anthony Mann and photographed in Caravaggesque black and white by cinematographer John Alton. The film is a story about war, peace, love and bigotry. At the end of the Civil War, a veteran of the Union Army, Lance Poole, returns to his home in Wyoming. Poole, (Robert Taylor), a Shoshone Indian, has had his fill of fighting and simply wants to live in peace on his family's ancestral acres.The West, however, is changing. Wyoming has become a territory and the railroad is spreading westward. Immigration from the drought ridden states of the Midwest is filling Wyoming with sheepherders who need land and water to survive. New territorial laws are Draconian in respect to Indians—they are not American citizens, but wards of the government. Land that has been in their families for generations is now open to anyone who wants to homestead there.A lawyer named Vern Coolan (Louis Calhern) has moved West for his health. He hates Indians, especially Lance Poole, or Broken Lance, a "rich Indian." Coolan stirs up trouble by encouraging the sheep men to homestead Poole's land. Poole goes to the only lawyer in town other than Coolan, one A. Masters (Paula Raymond). At first horrified that she is a woman, Poole does hire her to help him.Coolan is successful in mobilizing the sheep men. The Indians, led by Broken Lance, must fight to survive. Masters involves the army in a misguided attempt to save the man she now loves. A final battle ensues with the predictable outcome. Broken Lance, a holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his war service, surrenders to the cavalry.A sub-theme of the film is the confinement of Indians to the reservations. Their men dead, a small group of women and children is forced to return to a reservation from their shelter on Poole's land. Watching them trudge away to a life of confinement is heart breaking. There are no happy endings here.Robert Taylor is superb as Broken Lance Poole. When offered the role, Mr. Taylor was happy to act in a film that, for once, saw things from the Indian point of view. It is the same year he made another film, Ambush, that saw Indians as villains. Lance Poole gradually morphs into Broken Lance as Taylor is forced to accept that the world only sees the color of his "hide." His manner of dress changes as does his personality. Lance Poole was a happy man looking forward to the future. Broken Lance sees that there is no future for him.The supporting cast of Marshall Thomson, James Mitchell, Edgar Buchanan, Spring Byington and Fritz Lieber, are first rate. The music by Daniele Amfithreatrof is muted and sorrowful, except for the battle scenes.Broken Arrow, with James Stewart and Jeff Chandler, was made after Devil's Doorway but released first. It was a more upbeat and successful take on Indians. Devil's Doorway did make money but, according to the studio, only a net profit of $25,000. Today the film is highly regarded for its hard edged honesty, first-rate acting, subtle direction and superb photography.

It is shocking that this movie was able to be green-lighted in the Hollywood of 1950. But is the point of view presented here really sympathetic to the "Indians" or deterministic, as was the 1957 movie Something of Value, which told a similar tale about the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. Should one be impressed by the subject matter or appalled that the fate of Native Americans was actually less important to these producers than their prurient fascination with an implied hook-up between Taylor (a red man rocking a page boy wig, his screen test for Ivanhoe) and Paula Raymond (the whitest woman in his world)? Whatever the impetus for the film, the acting is quite affecting all around. But the story is so relentlessly bleak and heartbreaking for a 1950 film, that one might almost imagine it as the retro nightmare of the misanthropic, Lars von Trier. The monstrous unfairness of the stolen land, the inhumane displacement of a very sympathetic group of Native Americans and their eventual annihilation is presented with no sugar coating in a way that has yet to be done for other famous sagas of injustice, such as American Slavery, the Irish potato famine or today's beleaguered Palestinians. There could not be a happy ending to any of these stories and this creative team deserves credit for realizing that about Devil's Doorway.

Robert Taylor, a Hollywood workhorse if there ever was one, NEVER in over 30 years on the screen, put in a bad performance or one in which he failed to give everything he had--from heavily romantic roles, to fatuous 1930s comedies to Westerns to Toga & Sandal monstrosities to crime dramas and---you name it. And always to the level best of his ability. William Wellman, a crack director and one very, very tough and world-experienced hombre, said Taylor was the finest man he ever knew. But the problem Taylor faced in The Devil's Doorway was absolutely insurmontable, even for him. American Indians are Asiatics (which is abundantly clear from the many Indian faces which appear in the movie (not including his father, played by a Caucasian)). No one in the whole wide world looks less Asiatic or more Caucasian than Robert Taylor (with the possible exception of Burt Lancaster, who also, moronically, got saddled with a Noble Indian role). Indeed, in the original version of this movie, which was in color, blue-eyed Robert Taylor had the dubious distinction of playing the only full-blooded blue-eyed Shoshone in the history of the world. Throughout the movie all the experienced moviegoer could think while watching it was "There's Ol' Bob Taylor in blackface." It was like watching Louis Armstrong in whiteface. Ridiculous. Also, his English was without accent and clearly educated, upper-middle class White (mirroring what Taylor in fact was)---how could that possibly be?---while his Shoshone was limited to a few barked, incomplete commands. Nevertheless, Taylor did his usual faultless, yeoman-like job against hopeless credibility odds. The photography was outstanding, Paula Raymond---who, by the way, could not, as a woman, have been licensed to practice law---was breathtakingly beautiful (what ever happened to her?), and Louis Calhern, as always, was excellent. As for the story, that is something else again. Childish, good-guy spirit-loving, earth-loving Indians versus bad-guy avaricious, violent Caucasians. Yawn. That is not the way it was. The Indians did all but teach university-level courses in Violence and Avarice---which they practiced extensively on one another before and after the arrival of the Whites. But that's for another time.

I made a copy of this movie when I saw it online. It was NOT, however, in black/white (as someone said); it was originally made in color, and has not been colorized.Robert Taylor was remarkable as Lance Poole; the only thing that bothered me were his incredibly beautiful blue eyes; he should have been wearing BROWN contacts! Paula Raymond was just perfect as the young lawyer who tried to help Lance keep his land, and Louis Calhern was so good that I still hate him! The movie was historically accurate, not the story line, but the way things occurred at the time that these events took place -- shortly after the Civil War! I don't think the fate of our Native American population can be compared in any way to that of the African/Americans, since they have come a long way and do take part in things happening here, both culturally and politically. Whereas the Indians have made little, if any progress, and even today the state of the reservations are disgraceful, and among the young men there is an unusually high rate of alcoholism and suicide.The movie was beautifully, and sensitively written and acted, and showed no bias whatsoever -- only the truth.I treasure my copy of Devil's Doorway and have looked for it on DVD, but so far, no luck.This is a marvelous western and ranks with the best! It seems strange it was only up for ONE nomination,which of course it never got! I am sure that anyone seeing it would not be able to forget it!