The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present
Sergeant Rutledge
When
Wed 2 Dec 2026
Woody Strode stars as the NCO of a Black cavalry troop fighting against a false charge of the rape and murder of a white woman. A dark, enclosed, pent-up courtroom Western verging on chamber drama, this candidly provocative film marked the beginning of Ford’s last great period, characterised by a potent self-revisionism of his previous five decades of filmmaking.
Taking advantage of the relative relaxation of censorship at the time, Ford’s film is remarkable for its sexual frankness and sympathetic focus on African-American experience. With Jeffrey Hunter, Constance Towers, Juano Hernandez and Billie Burke.
35mm print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia.
Films in this program
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
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