Buffalo Bill
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Movie Reviews of Buffalo Bill
Movie Review: Buffalo Bill DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
Great movie, that's why I bought it. Brought back some great memories of childhood western entertainment. Easy for entire family to watch together! Delivery was very fast!Movie Review: Buffalo BillT
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie is very good about Buffalo Bill
and how he got started with his wild west show.
Movie Review: Legend overawes truth, but entertainingly enough
Summary: 4 Stars
A wagon, heading towards a fort, attacked by Indians. Riding to the rescue, rifle blazing, is Buffalo Bill Cody (Joel McCrea). Among those saved, Senator Frederici (Moroni Olsen) and his daughter Louisa (Maureen O'Hara). Louisa raves on a bit about the "savages", but Bill corrects her, suggesting that they attack the wagons crazed with whiskey - which the white man provided. This nicely sets the stage for the moral attitude of the film - that Buffalo Bill is a man caught between the worlds of civilization and nature, and that he understands and respects the Indian, is saddened by what has been done to him - even while he knows that his duty is to help further the cause of westward expansion.
This is a pretty well done large-scale, expensive Technicolor western - made at a time when only a couple of westerns per year were in color. There's a lot of location shooting (in Montana and Utah), and several of the sequences involve quite large numbers of extras - the large battle between the cavalray and the Cheyenne at the end is pretty spectacular. But ultimately it's the tale of one man who becomes famous but initially rejects it, whose heart is always being torn - between doing his duty for his country in leading the cavalry to head off the Cheyenne at Powder River, for which he received a Medal of Honor, and between fame and fortune in New York after establishing his Wild West show, and a quieter life at home in the west. The cast is pretty solid, and McCrea brings some real poignancy to his portrayal, even if there's probably not a lot of historical truth to it. Thomas Mitchell is along to play the sardonic newspaperman who helps put Bill into the public spotlight, and Edgar Buchanan is old-timer Sgt "Chips" McGraw, a somewhat more serious role than what he often played
What's probably most memorable and interesting about the film today is the relatively complex portrayal of Bill's - and the nation's - relationships with the Indians. It's not surprising that the two principal native roles are played by whites - Anthony Quinn as Bill's childhood friend and eventual enemy Chief Yellowhand, and Linda Darnell as the rather superfluous and underdeveloped schoolteacher Dawn Starlight, whose loyalties are torn between her people and her obvious (if never stated or explored) attraction to Bill. In the end, certainly stereotypes abound (the raised hand and "How" in greeting, the pidgin English, etc) and we get little sense of the Indians as human beings, of their culture; but the fact that Bill is presented as championing their cause at times - and regretting when he has to fight them, always - and that the film makes no bones about the treaties being broken by the white man while the natives have tried to honor them, certainly gives it a more progressive stance than many westerns of the time.
Most of the action of the film takes place in 1872 or thereabouts, though as I said it plays fast and loose with history; if I'm not mistaken, for example, the film conflates the Powder Creek battle for which Cody received is MOH with the Warbonnet Creek incident from four years later, after Custer's last stand. In any case, it's this "western" part of Cody's career, the beginning of his marriage, and the showdown with the Cheyenne that is the concern here; the formation of the Wild West show and Bill's later career is treated as an afterthought, but it is to the film's considerable credit that we can well imagine what went into those shows, and Cody's moral purpose in showing the public the "real" west - certainly whitewashed in this film, which does tread a little too close to hagiography at times - is clearly evident. Whether it really happened like that or not is beside the point; this is the larger-than-life Bill, and as such it's a solid piece of work.
Movie Review: Hero of War Bonnet Gorge
Summary: 4 Stars
Rule #1 - If you want history, read a book.
William Wellman's BUFFALO BILL (1944) stars Joel McCrea as the western army scout Buffalo Bill Cody, hero of dime novels and owner and star of a legendary Wild West show. Two-thirds Hollywood hokum and one-third kind of accurate, it's nonetheless entertaining. What more can we ask from a movie?
The movie opens in an US army outpost somewhere on the western edge of the great plains. Cody acts as scout for the army, as well as liaison with a local Cheyenne tribe. Cody has been a friend of one of the tribes chiefs, Yellow Hand (Anthony Quinn), since they were children. In fact, the movie tells us, Cody saved his life and, as such things go in westerns, incurs a lifelong debt from the grateful Yellow Hand. (NB - The Yellow Hand character is based on a Cheyenne chief named Yellow Hair, who, after Custer's fateful trip up the Little Big Horn, Cody "shot, stabbed, and scalped in about five seconds." Yellow Hair (Hand) is a real character in the Buffalo Bill myth only because he was immortalized in an act in the Wild West show. The act was titled `Buffalo Bill's First Scalp for Custer.' Hardly a way to treat a childhood friend, even in the wild and wooly west.) Buffalo Bill and Yellow Hand do have a showdown scene in the movie, although it's rather honorable and, thankfully, scalping-free.
While an outpost scout Cody meets and marries Louisa Frederici (Maureen O'Hara), with whom he has a son. (The movie omits the fact that the real Buffalo Bill sued his wife for divorce in 1905... okay, I'll quit now. You get the idea.) While there he also meets the mellifluous pulp author Ned Buntline (Thomas Mitchell.) With newborn in tow and Buntline presumably back east creating a legend, Buffalo Bill is presented with his first great decision - the outpost is being abandoned and the soldiers are going to link up with a force in the Sioux Territory: Does Buffalo Bill leave the soldiers to grope their way north through hostile territory and probable slaughter, or does he abandon his wife and child to return east to civilization and safety alone?
If BUFFALO BILL plays a little fast and loose with the facts, its heart is in the right place. Its sympathetic to Yellow Hand's Cheyennes, presenting them as a people who are starved to violence by the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo. "The Cheyenne had no choice," Buffalo Bill says at one point. "It's a bad thing for a man to starve." It's not a sentiment you normally see in a western from 1944. Buffalo Bill does finally make it to the east, and we track his progress from the Astor House to command performances before the crowned heads of Europe.
Although it fails as history BUFFALO BILL is pretty entertaining. Joel McCrea had an easy-going screen persona that works well here, and the beautiful Maureen O'Hara is always a pleasure. Quinn does well (this was well before he began to seriously over-act), and Edgar Buchanan delivers as a crusty old calvary sergeant. The only anchor in the cast is poor, beautiful Linda Darnell as schoolmarm/Indian princess Dawn Starlight. Darnell was not a very strong actress, and her character is a bit of a mystery. She seems to bear an unrequited lover for Buffalo Bill, but it doesn't read right. All the dots don't connect with her character and it looks like some of her scenes, scenes which might have made sense of things, were left on the cutting room floor.
The print was in very good condition, and the colors were quite vibrant. High recommendation for this one, especially for fans of traditional westerns.
Movie Review: Entertaining if nothing else
Summary: 4 Stars
Please note that I saw this movie on HBO so I can't comment on the video transfer or its features.
As other reviewers here have noted, this movie plays fast and loose with the facts, but it's entertaining and enjoyable to watch. McCrea was a good choice for the character of Buffalo Bill Cody, a no-nonsense, easy-going but courageous Indian scout and frontiersman whose exploits were much celebrated during his day in dime novels and in the newspapers. Frontiersman like him, and also Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, John Colter, Wild Bill Hickok, and others, became legends in their time as they pushed back the frontiers and fought the Indians.
All the supporting actors did a fine job with their roles, including Edgar Buchanan as an old army sergeant, and Jane Darnell as the Indian schoolteacher who seems to have a thing for Buffalo Bill although this doesn't really get developed.
The movie follows Bill through his various adventures and exploits, the most important being the battle at War Bonnet pass where he killed the Indian chief Yellow Hand. There's a long lead-up to this event, though, as the movie follows Bill's interactions with the local Indians and the townspeople. But after this event, the movie takes a distinctly different turn as Bill travels back to Washington and gets involved in the quagmire of Indian politics in the capital. Bill's life takes a downward turn at this point as he runs out of money and is forced to support himself as a carnival side show act demonstrating his amazing shooting skills. Perhaps from this experience he gets the idea to form his own Wild West Show, which is shown as traveling not only the U.S. but abroad as well and is a huge success.
One of the most interesting aspects of the movie is how it goes to great pains to show the Indians in a positive light, often portraying them as honorable, reasonable, and decent people, compared to the greedy and dishonest white man who simply wants to defraud the Indians of their land. Bill is often seen commenting on how admirable he finds the Indians in many ways and he usually takes their side in their disputes with the white man. If true this is an interesting comment on his character.
Overall a decent movie and unusual in how positively it portrays the Indians and how negatively it portrays the white culture. The color is also still quite vibrant which adds to the visual appeal of the movie.
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