The Scalphunters

Description

OscarÂ(r)-winning* director Sydney Pollack delivers a "rousing good show" (The Film Daily) with this fast-paced western full of "irresistible humor" and "delightful ironies" (MotionPicture Herald). Starring OscarÂ(r) winners** Burt Lancaster and Shelley Winters along with Telly Savalas and Ossie Davis, The Scalphunters is "a lively, ribald and unpredictable pleasure which carries the western into new country" (Los Angeles Times)! When trapper Joe Bass (Lancaster) is bushwhacked by Indians who steal his fursand leave him a runaway slave (Davis) in exchangehe's determined to get his property back. But when the Indians are attacked byoutlaws, Joe and his unwanted companion must join forces to retrieve the furs in a startling, action-packed journey of self-discovery that concludes with one of the "all-time cinematic comeuppances" (Citizen-News)!

Customer Reviews:

"Scalp hunters. The wickedest, crookedest trade to ever turn a dollar.".......2007-06-17

Once quietly groundbreaking for its racial politics - Ossie Davies' escaped slave is by far smarter than any of the film's white characters, quite a bold move for a mainstream movie even in 1967 - seen today The Scalphunters is one of those films that's enjoyable but never quite as good as it could be. Former IRA gunrunner turned screenwriter William Norton's almost Dickensian dialogue in the first third of the movie is so good that it's a shame that the plot separates Burt Lancaster and Ossie Davies for so long and while it makes some smart points about racism along the way there's a feeling of the film almost running down rather than building up to a climax. Still, Elmer Bernstein's score is one of the best ever written for a Western, alternatively rousingly vivid, jauntily amusing and lyrically likeable, and the film has its charms.

MGM/UA's US DVD includes the theatrical trailer and 2.35:1 widescreen and fullscreen versions of the film.

Great Cast in This Western Story.......2007-05-06

Entertainig Burt Lancaster vehicle.
A good Western with light comedic tones
considering the subject matter.
You could almost call it a veiled history\ morality lesson
with an all star cast delivering it with flare.

Excellent Western.......2006-06-28

An excellent cast, great adventure for western lovers. Each of the stars shine in their characters from a Black Camanche sold to a determined mountain man to get his furs back from indians later massacred and taken by a ruthless bounty hunter. And yes, there is romance.

"But your Joe Bass!..You can move mountains!..You'll be alright!".......2006-06-22

This is a great action/comedy western with Burt Lancaster as Joe Bass. Elmer Bernstein's bouncy musical score sets the stage for this not so typical western film. Joe Bass starts off to sell his years worth of furs when the Kiowas show up and forcefully exchange the furs for a run-away slave named Joseph Lee(Ossie Davis)...Joseph had taken up residency, after running away from the plantation, with the Comanches until the Kiowas raided and slaughtered the Comanches capturing him in the process. Joe Bass of course doesn't want him and so they set off to retake the furs. In a display of misadventures, the furs are in turn taken from the Kiowas by the Scalphunters led by Jim Howie(Telly Savalas).

The continued misadventure of chasing after the furs, combined with a great budding relationship between Joe Bass and Joseph Lee, make this movie very enjoyable. Lee is far more educated than Bass and he is doing his best, with whatever and whomever is available, to escape off to Mexico and finally be free from Joe Bass, the Kiowas and Jim Howie.

Rounding off this movie's cast is Shelley Winters..in one of her more enjoyable roles..as Jim Howie's girlfriend Kate. The Sunday scene of her and her girls singing Eliza R. Snow's great Mormon hymn 'In Our Lovely Deseret' as Jim Howie tries to recover from his hangover is hilarious. Taken as a whole this is a very enjoyable movie and well worth adding to any western collection.

The Scalphunters.......2005-10-03

After being coerced by a roving gang of Kiowas to trade his season's worth of hard-earned furs for a runaway slave, Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster) vows to take back what's his. Before he can get them, though, the Kiowas are slaughtered by a gang of `scalphunters' led by Jim Howie (Telly Salavas), who nips Joe Bass's furs in the bargain. With Joseph Winfield Lee (Ossie Davis) in tow, Joe Bass trails the fur and scalp-laden Jim Howie and vows yet again to reclaim his property.

THE SCALPHUNTERS (1968) is a comedy-western that somehow manages to makes palatable some terrible things - specifically, slavery and the harvest and sale of human scalps. It doesn't condone them, of course, but it doesn't dwell on their horrors, either. Lancaster is energetic and perfectly cast as the savvy fur trapper who is determined to get what's his back again. Salavas and Shelley Winters as his trail moll, are pretty good, as well. The heart of the thing, though, is Ossie Davis as the erudite slave who seems the only person to see the big picture, as it were. As he'd prove a couple of years later with `Jeremiah Johnson,' director Sydney Pollock is deft at handling offbeat action movies. THE SCALPHUNTERS is a fun movie that merits a strong four stars.

Average customer rating:

"Scalp hunters. The wickedest, crookedest trade to ever turn a dollar."
Great Cast in This Western Story
Excellent Western
"But your Joe Bass!..You can move mountains!..You'll be alright!"
The Scalphunters

The Scalphunters [Region 2]
Starring: Burt Lancaster , Shelley Winters , Telly Savalas , Ossie Davis , and Dabney Coleman
Director: Sydney Pollack
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B00028HCG0