Soldato blu

Original work print of the movie was 135 minutes long. When it was test-screened to an audience, they almost started a riot after watching this version. This was the only time that the full uncut version was shown, and it caused the studio to decide that it was unreleasable unless massive cuts were made to the film's violent scenes. Some of these cut and never included in any official version scenes include shots of Indian women's breasts being sliced off and thrown around; children's limbs graphically severed (real amputees were employed for these shots); a little girl's legs cut off by wagon wheels; a soldier gleefully cutting an Indian's arms off before shooting another Cheyenne in the eye; the fate of Spotted Wolf, who is beheaded and his head is hoisted as a trophy by a soldier before he tosses it to another soldier, who then throws it off camera. Spotted Wolf's head attached to the stirrup of a cavalryman was not cut and is shown in the release print, and there are stills showing his mutilated body lying on the ground without the head and four cavalrymen running around with his severed head in their hands, howling and laughing while blood is spurting from the neck stump.

The voice-over at the end of the film describes the events we have just witnessed as taking place in 1864.However,earlier in the movie Honus tells Cresta that his father was killed at the battle of Little Bighorn which occurred in 1876.

The movie was originally rated "R" by the MPAA. In 1974 a new version was rated "PG" which removed the most graphically violent parts from the massacre as well as a toned down rape scene, but the scene still contained full frontal nudity of a native woman.

Featured in JFK II: The Bush Connection (2003)