Filmed in Oregon, Andre De Toth's film is a frontier adventure tale of the Great Sioux Nation whose heritage and culture run through the silver screen like a strong steady stream...
The motion picture touches up new ground by giving Indians a little sex appeal... Douglas, as a vigorous frontier scout, tries to attract the Indian maiden Onahti, played by the attractive brunette Elsa Martinelli... The Italian actress is seen bathing in the fresh waters of a river and later captured nude in a transparent voluminous stream...
"The Indian Fighter" concerns the efforts of a wagon train heading for Oregon in 1870... The train stops at a small frontier fort when the Sioux forbid them to pass through their territory... A seasoned scout and Indian expert, Johnny Hawks (Douglas), is assigned by the army to aid them...
Hawks rapidly goes to the camp of the dignified Chief Red Cloud (Eduard Franz) who explains that the trouble was started by white whiskey traders, trying to rob the Indians of their gold...
Hawks promises to settle th situation and the Chief agrees to appear at the fort to sign a peace treaty... However, his aggressive brother Grey Wolf (Harry Landers) repudiates peace talk because he despises all white men as dishonorable...
Douglas' portrait of Hawks is suitably vigorous and possibly comes close to depicting the actual character of such a man - Hawks is a jealous self-confident man who considers the West as his milieu... He declines to open up the West for civilization... He considers the West as 'a beautiful woman' and refuses to share her with anybody... He is a brave warrior who fights Sioux-style, and a shooter who never miss a snake... He respects the Indians as vanquished valiant enemies who deserve to be treated as human beings...
