The story has three plot strands that run concurrently through the film: a stagecoach carrying a rich widow home to her family's hacienda, a war party of Native Americans returning to their village, and two fur traders waiting to meet a different group of Native Americans with whom they trade.

The war party attacks the other Native Americans and kills their leader, who owns a magnificent white Arabian stallion.

White Bull (Waterston) attempts to capture the horse, but it is too quick and makes off carrying the dead chief.

"[5] Harvey said "The moment I read Eagle's Wing I knew very clearly the kind of things I wanted visually, and talked to Billy Williams for days about it.

"[6] Financed was raised from the Rank Organisation, who made it as part of a slate of eight films with an estimated total budget of £10 million.

(The others were Wombling Free, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, The Riddle of the Sands, Silver Dream Racer, Tarka the Otter and Bad Timing.

"Mexico is a most thrilling country to work in," said Harvey, who in August 1978 was planning on making another film there, a version of the novel Under the Volcano.

"[5] The film had its world premiere at the Prince Charles Cinema in London in July 1979 and was highly acclaimed by the British press.

"[9] The Observer called it "dazzling"[10] and The Guardian saying it was "well worth seeing" although adding "if the film doesn't quite work, it is because it discovers what it is about a trifle too late in the day.

"[11] It opened on 26 July 1979 and finished in tenth place at the London box office with a gross of £8,316 in its first week at the Prince Charles Cinema.

Alexander Walker called it "a well directed Western" which was "deemed fatally "arty" by some of the Rank executives and had difficulty getting wide bookings even in the group's own cinema chains.