Sergeant Rutledge

John Ford is widely acknowledged - with a few exceptions, including film historian David Thomson - as one of the greatest directors of his generation, boasting such classics as The Searchers, Stagecoach and The Grapes of Wrath in his repertoire.

This movie, one of the director's later works, confronts issues of racial tension in the post-Civil War era, territory that Ford had once tended to avoid.

Woody Strode plays the eponymous black sergeant who is accused of rape and murder on circumstantial evidence.

Jeffrey Hunter co-stars as a lieutenant who captures the persecuted officer, but later comes to his defence.

Most watched News videos