Notes from Indian Country
Monday, September 14, 2020
Reminiscing about “The Mystic Warrior”
Stan Margulies was a little apprehensive about coming to Rapid City for the preview of a film produced by him and David Wolper called The Mystic Warrior. Margulies and Wolper had joined forces to produce the great TV miniseries on slavery called Roots. They had also produced the Thorn Birds.
But when they turned a book by Ruth Beebe Hill called Hanta Yo into a TV miniseries they faced some criticism from several Lakota people about its authenticity. They first made the mistake of having their publicist call the miniseries the “Roots of Indian Country.” With more than 500 Indian tribes in America, each with different traditions, language and culture, that was not very likely.
Margulies asked me, Joe American Horse, and Mike Her Many Horses to review the script while the shooting was in progress and make any cultural changes we thought to be necessary. After the show was complete Margulies decided to preview it at the Elks Theater in Rapid City in early 1982. Joe, Mike and I flew out to LA to meet with Wolper and Margulies and discuss some of the changes we had made to the script. It was a good meeting and they agreed to adjust the script.

Jump Big Crow and Robert Fast Horse came up to Stan and me after the show to tell Stan how much they enjoyed the movie and I could see Stan visibly relax. I think that the bad public relations preceding the show caused confusion and concern and so what could have, and should have, been a great movie about American Indians never got off of the ground. It aired for two consecutive nights on ABC and it never had the impact we hoped it would. I still have the tapes of the Mystic Warrior and I take them out and look at them occasionally if only to see my old friends Will Sampson and Sonny Skyhawk playing their assigned roles. Sampson made his film debut in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Skyhawk has been in several movies, but his major role in Hollywood had been as an advocate to get fair treatment for Native American actors.@WarnerArchive @robertbeltran74 Any chance of the 1984 mini series "Mystic Warrior" coming to dvd? I was obsessed with it as a kid! pic.twitter.com/E5dujOWkYD
— Bobster A. (@TheMeister30) August 3, 2017
Tim Giago can be contacted at najournalist1@gmail.com
Note: Content © Tim Giago
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