The Scalphunters
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Movie Reviews of The Scalphunters
Movie Review: Very enjoyable movie.
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie shows Burt Lancaster at his best.The movie is very enjoyable.It has drama,comedy,and is suitable for the whole family.
Don
Movie Review: classic western
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a classic wetern. often overlooked. Great stuff from Telly Savalos and Shelly Winters. Lancaster is tough and cool as usual.Movie Review: A solid and enjoyable film.
Summary: 4 Stars
Sydney Pollack's "The Scalphunters" (1968) is a briskly-paced, revisionist Western with an entertaining script and equally entertaining performances by a strong cast. Given the title, some viewers may expect a serious and gritty drama about the depraved scalp hunters who plagued the American West. However, in actuality, this well-written light-hearted film is a clever blend of both comedic and dramatic elements.
The story is complicated, yet easy to follow: Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster) is a grizzled, Bible-reciting fur trapper with a monomaniacal attachment to his beaver pelts. Held up by Indians, Bass is forced to exchange his pelts for the tethered Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis), an escaped slave who formerly served an educated family in Louisiana. Bass and a reluctant Lee pursue the Indians but, through a twist of fate, Bass' furs fall into the hands of scalp hunters led by Jim Howie (the always engaging Telly Savalas), a burly ruffian henpecked by his prostitute-girlfriend Kate (a fussy, cigar-chewing Shelley Winters).
It is the latter performances which is the key to the film's success. Lancaster, Davis, Savalas and Winters effortlessly spin out humorous performances. And the best scenes are the humorous ones, such as when Savalas yells at Winters' to stop singing those damn Mormon songs or when Savalas defiantly tells Lancaster that he will kill him then steps on a cactus while returning to the wagon.
Yet for all its amusing tomfoolery, the film has a message: The axis of that message revolves around the dyadic relationship between trapper Joe Bass and the slave Joseph Lee; their hopes and their prejudices. Bass desires only to reacquire his pelts and Lee desires only to escape to Mexico. Both are reluctant to help the other. Each holds the other in contempt: Bass views Lee as a meek slave, and Lee views Bass as an uneducated hick. But, in the final scene, both characters are covered in mud; the color of their skin obscured. It is in this scene they find their equality, and one grasps the subtly of the film's psychology.
Movie Review: Shaggy Dog Story Out West
Summary: 4 Stars
In The Heat of the Night ,made a year before this movie,subverted the cinemaa's most offensive stereotype-the intellectually inferior black man .It featured in Virgil Tibbs -as played by Sidney Poitier-a dfetective infinitely more intelligent than the small town white lawman ,as played by Rod Steiger .
The Scalphunters does the same thing within a Western setting .The runaway slave Joseph Winfield Lee (Ossie Davis) captured by Kiowas and traded to fur trapper Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster)is way more educated ,literate and smart than his new "master".They are compelled to work together when a gang headed by Telly Savalas steals the furs .Once this task is accomplished futher trouble breaksout between them culminating in a rousing -if over prolonged fist fight leaving them both covered in mud which turns them both a symbolic shade of grey
This is a movie reflecting the political tensions of its era and it wears its liberal credentials proudly .The symblism in the script is a trifle heavy handed and Sideney Pollack is not an iodeal director for this kind of outdoor action drama.However this is good fun and does have lashings of charm ,For my money it stops short of greatness by virue of its direction and a certain ambiguity in the movie .It s poised between being a traditional western and a more modern one ,between drama and slapstick comedy .However it has charm and incident ,a raft of excellent performances -especially a brisk turn from Savalas and a deft one from Shelly Winters as his floosie -making a return to the kind of good hearted tart role she played early in her career,Her response to being tradfed to the Kiowas is a model of benign insouciance and provides the best moment in the movie.
Solid support too from Dabney Coleman .Dan Vadis -the peplum star making his only US appearance -and Paul Picerni .The movie tries to be all things to all men and in so doing just misses the top flight of the genre but it is still enjoyable and pertinent
Movie Review: Exciting western with right blend of action/humor
Summary: 4 Stars
The Scalphunters is a very enjoyable western that is not as well known as some of star Burt Lancaster's other movies, but it is more than worthwhile. Trapper Joe Bass is heading back to St. Louis with a pack mule full of beaver pelts when a group of Kiowas intervene and take his pelts, leaving him a smooth-talking, educated slave by the name of Joseph Windfield Lee. Bass unwillingly takes Lee along, but before he can get his pelts back from the Kiowas, the warriors are attacked bya group of outlaws who scalp Indians for $25 a person. Bass embarks on a journey to get his beaver pelts back, no matter what it takes. The Scalphunters is not considered a classic western, but it has everything to make it highly enjoyable. A great cast, a lively musical score from Elmer Bernstein, beautiful scenery, and the right mix of action and humor all combine to make one of Lancaster's better movies.
The four main leads to the movie set The Scalphunters apart from many other westerns. Burt Lancaster is great as Joe Bass, the trapper who will attempts to get his pelts back at all costs. Bass is similar to Lancaster's Bill Dolworth in The Professionals in that he enjoys living and will stop at nothing to keep on enjoying living. Telly Savalas is also very good as the villain, Jim Howie, the leader of the gang of scalphunters who steals Bass' pelts. Shelley Winters seems somewhat out of place as Kate, Howie's woman who wants to get out of the west and into a big city as fast as she can. Ossie Davis steals the movie as Joseph Windfield Lee, the highly educated runaway slave who becomes Joe Bass' unwilling companion. The interplay between Lancaster and Davis provide some of the movie's most hilarious moments. The DVD offers a beautiful-looking widescreen presentation and a theatrical trailer. For a lesser known but still very good western with great perfomances from Lancaster, Savalas, and Davis, check out Sydney Pollack's The Scalphunters!