of his earlier films, especially Stagecoach and The Searchers. Parts of the film also were shot at the San Juan River at Mexican Hat, Professor Valley, Castle Valley, the Colorado River, Fisher Canyon, and Arches in Utah. Although the principal tribal leaders were played by Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland (as well as Dolores del Río and Sal Mineo in major roles), Ford again used numerous members of the Navajo tribe in this production. Native language issue Ford used Navajo people to portray the Cheyenne. Dialogue that is supposed to be in the "Cheyenne language" is actually Navajo. This made little difference to white audiences, but for Navajo communities the film became very popular because the Navajo actors were openly using ribald and crude language that had nothing to do with the film. For example, during the scene where the treaty is signed, the chief's solemn speech just pokes fun at the size of the colonel's penis. Some academics now consider this an important moment in the development of Native Americans' identity because they are able to mock Hollywood's historical interpretation of the American West. Reception The reviews were mixed. Bosley Crowther, critic for The New York Times, praised it highly, calling it "a beautiful and powerful motion picture that stunningly combines a profound and passionate story of mistreatment of American Indians with some of the most magnificent and energetic cavalry-and-Indian lore ever put upon the screen." He was disappointed, however, that after the humorous (if "superfluous") Dodge City sequence, "the picture does not rise again to its early integrity and authenticity", and the climax is "neither effective and convincing drama nor is it faithful to the novel". The New Yorker'''s Richard Brody cited the "rueful, elegiac grandeur of John Ford's final Western".Variety disagreed, however, calling it "a rambling, episodic account" in which "the original premise of the Mari Sandoz novel is lost sight of in a wholesale insertion of extraneous incidents which bear little or no relation to the subject." The New Republic's Stanley Kauffmann wrote "the acting is bad, the dialogue trite and predictable, the pace funereal, the structure fragmented, the climaxes puny". The September 1965 issue of MAD satirized it as "Cheyenne Awful." The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10: Nominated Western Film Award nominations Nominated: Academy Award for Best Cinematography: William H. Clothier Nominated: Golden Globe Award