Reviled in his lifetime as a lunatic insurrectionist, Chief Crazy Horse has in recent years emerged as a Native American hero. In this off-beat western, unusual for its time in that it sympathetically presented the Native American viewpoint,
Victor Mature plays the misunderstood Sioux leader while the treaty-breaking villain General Crook is played by
James Millican (who had earlier portrayed an equally unsympathetic General Custer in
Warpath). The battle of the Little Big Horn is staged with less bravura but more authenticity than in 1941's
They Died With Their Boots On (a wildly inaccurate pro-Custer opus). Chief Crazy Horse falters only in its verbose dialogue sequences, wherein the native tongue of the Sioux seems to be Fluent Cliche. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide