The film does try to tell a story more fully about the Native Americans, but the main characters which are Apache are portrayed by white actors like Jeff Chandler. This does most certainly does lead to a good amount of non authenticity with his performance. I never really believed him as Cochise. This is certainly at least partially not his fault. It was miscasting to have a white actor portray the lead Apache especially since most of the supporting Apache are portrayed by actual Native Americans.
Chandler technically could have been worse and really fell flat as Cochise into embarrassing territory. Chandler instead is just mostly dull in his performance. He stands up straight with a very dignified leader sort of posture, and speaks in commanding enough fashion I suppose. He never makes Cochise all that interesting, nor does he get over his miscasting. His performance just stays a mostly dull, and at best at becomes a functional performance. His performance just is not at all special and I doubt I would remember it at all if he had not been nominated for an Oscar.
