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Another of the movied that I recorded off of TCM some time back because the premise sounded interesting and that was wholly unknown to me when TCM aired it was the movie Flap. Having seen it, I can see why it was wholly unknown to me.

Anthony Quinn plays Flapping Eagle, an aging member of the Navajo tribe living on the reservation and drinking too much, making a meager living by transporting goods to and from the reservation. As the movie opens, he's hauling tchotckes through Tucson on his way to the edge of the reservation where one of those kitsch places is going to sell them as "authentic" Indian dolls. Except that Flapping Eagle misjudges a turn resulting in some of the boxes falling off the truck. When he and his friends Lobo (Claude Akins) and the much younger Eleven (Tony Bill) get out to pick up the stuff, it causes a traffic backup that results in police Lt. Rafferty (Victor French) engaging in a bit of police brutality on them.

Back at the reservation, Flapping Eagle talks to tribal lawyer Wounded Bear (Victor Jory) to find out if there's anything that can be done. To which, the answer is, not much. And it's not as if Wounded Bear is much of a lawyer anyway. He's more of a historian in that he's got the old copies of all the tribal treaties between the Navajo and the Americans, most of which isn't going to to Flapping Eagle any good in traffic court.

Life on the reservation is tough, and is only about to get tougher when the US government plans to extend the Interstate Highway System over land that happens to belong to the Navajo. This necessitates the exhumation and reburial of several bodies, as well as the placement of a whole bunch of heavy equipment on tribal land that's going to be cut in two.

But, at this point, knowledge of the old treaties is something that might finally be useful. Apparently, there was a clause in one of the old treaties that if the Americans abandoned anything on tribal land, it would become property of the tribe. Now, the construction equipment can't really be considered abandond, but Flapping Eagle gets the idea that the Navajo could cause something else to just happen to be abandoned on the reservation, as there's a disused railroad spur leading onto the reservation. Flapping Eagle gets the railroad switch in working order, and gets cars of a cargo train to be shunted onto the reservation, but not the engine or the caboose, since that would result in humans being held technically captive on the reservation.

When Flapping Eagle claims ownership of the "abandoned" railroad cars, this causes a national sensation, as news organizations from all over the country want to see what's going on with this human interest story. Of course, the government wants the original owners to get their stuff back, and that leads to a conflict with ultimately tragic results.

I can once again see why people would want to make the story that forms the basis of Flap. Unfortunately, the movie goes wrong in its execution. Flap and the other Indians are basically stereotypes, and not particularly appealing characters. I'm not certain whether Flap was supposed to be a dark comedy or a serious drama, but it consistently feels off in tone with the result that it's neither funny nor serious enough in its drama. Shelley Winters appears as a love interest for Flap, but she way overplays it and is more irritating than anything else.