Totter Western Watch: The Vanishing American (1955)

Watched:  10/01/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joseph Kane

The Vanishing American (1955) is based on a Zane Grey novel that is supposed to be pretty good.  The novel is about a Navajo kid taken from home, raised by White folks, sent to college and the collision of his worlds.

This movie uses a tad of that as background for why it's male hero is more relatable to our female lead (Audrey Totter) but focuses on... the hot blonde and her land dispute.  Because it's 1955, people, and we don't want to make the audience feel things when we could just be having a rollicking adventure.

The cast is, also, of course, populated by a mix of folks, some actual Native American, some Hispanic folks and our hero is a white guy in a wig.  A guy who hates shirts.

there are worse looks than Totter's cowgirl get-up

Totter plays a woman of tremendous resolve who has inherited what seems a dumb piece of land in the middle of the desert, but she knows it's the only water for miles, a spring, and she can use it for grazing land.

Vandy, the "Navajo" above, basically leads her back to town where she finds out that, surprise, stuff is super shady on the edge of civilization and the local boss is also flat out abusing and SAing young Navajo women.  Totter's first act of rebellion is protecting one young woman by keeping her in her lodgings and then helps her escape.  

But, yeah, this is a very pro-Indigenous Peoples film and is not shy about what a bunch of shitheels white people could be on the frontier when the locals had their backs to the wall.  

Sure, I put it on as an Audrey Totter movie, but saw it also had Jay Silverheels (who is on screen for like 10 seconds), Lee Van Cleef (who is a very young man here), Glenn Strange as a Navajo leader (I know), and Gene Lockhart as Gene Lockhart, but in the west.

And, for reasons, it has Hank Worden playing a Navajo.  But it's always nice to see Hank show up.

I figured out finally that I recognized Forrest Tucker from F-Troop.  Scott Brady, who plays Vandy, is recognizable, but I had to look him up to know where I knew him from, and the answer is:  guy was in everything, including Gremlins.  

Totter is a good choice for the iron-willed Marion Warner.  We've seen her as someone not putting up with bunk plenty of times, and she doesn't have to stretch far in the role to make it work.

The movie wants to engage in ideas - like the tragedy of how separated the Navajo are from the world to their East, and the unwinnable conflict as settlers are backed by cavalry.  It just tucks it in there from time to time without ever connecting the dots.  But it's also not blinking at what is being lost.

Oddest, the movie features a romance between an anglo woman and a Native American man.  Sure, he's played by the very white Scott Brady, but I can't recall seeing that in a movie prior to this one and in the thick of the 1950's movie scene.

Unfortunately, it's just... not a great movie.  Maybe not even "good".  It's only 90 minutes and between a few key scenes, it feels like it's just spinning its wheels.  While not particularly imaginative, it is filmed in Utah and is able to capitalize on the scenery.  But this ain't John Ford.

And, mostly, I don't know why you take a book that's a social critique and then hollow it out for a movie.  

I *do* wonder if Sergio Leone saw the start of this movie and said "I have a better idea!", because there's a few minutes of this movie that feel dangerously close to Jill's arrival at Sweetwater in Once Upon a Time in America, which is one of my favorite films, and perfect (I am not taking debate on this topic at this time).