ada
the leading man is my tpye
Janae Milner
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Tyreece Hulme
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
gavin6942
Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.Ossie Davis was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film. And, really, his appearance is the highlight of the film. As far as westerns go, it is rather disappointing. And the artwork makes it seem almost like an exploitation film, which it most certainly is not. The cast is good, but does not make the film as a whole all that great. Frankly, I am not sure why Shelley Winters was ever a star.Thanks to Kino Lorber, this film is available on DVD. I can't say it's the best thing they've released, but it probably isn't the worst.
hazysistersunshine33
OK, this wasn't a great movie, but I am a bit Telly Savalas fan, so I am going to go a little easy on it. I am also not a big fan of westerns, but I am a fan of Burt Lancaster. I think he may be one of the best actors of all time. Both he and Savalas are not very good people in this movie. It's hard to survive in the old west, so I guess you have to be kind of a jerk. Even though Lancaster is supposed to be the protagonist and Savalas the antagonist, neither of them is very nice. They are both pretty much scalpers. Savalas and his gang steal Lancaster's booty and Lancaster tries to get it back from him. Shelly Winters, who plays Savalas' girl, is also in it as her flamboyant typical self. I would only recommend this if you are a fan of the actors and of westerns in general. I don't think it was a very big budget movie and probably kind of a quickie throw-away movie. You can probably find it free on demand or online so if you hate it, at least all you wasted was time.
Uriah43
"Joe Bass" (Burt Lancaster) is a trapper who has just finished his winter occupation and is heading back east to trade in his furs. Unfortunately, he encounters some semi-friendly Kiowa and they demand his furs in exchange for a black slave named "Joseph Lee" (Ossie Davis). Although Joe Bass doesn't want or need a slave, he has no choice but to allow the trade to transpire since the Kiowa outnumber him 12 to 1. But as they ride off he is determined to get his furs back one way or the other. Meanwhile, the Kiowa fall prey to a band of savage scalphunters who end up taking the furs after killing the Kiowa. So Joe Bass now has a different adversary to retrieve his furs from. Anyway, filmed in 1968 this movie has a not-too-subtle "message" about racism the director (Sydney Pollack) felt compelled to impart. No doubt that decision probably delighted the politically-correct critics during this time. However, regardless of how well-intentioned the motives may have been it was a bit too blatant in my opinion and detracted from the entertainment value this movie may have had. Along with that, the humor just wasn't that funny. Additionally, I thought Shelley Winters (as "Kate") was miscast for her part and neither Burt Lancaster nor Telly Savalas (as "Jim Howie") seemed to fulfill their potential. That said, for all of these reasons the movie seemed rather flat and lackluster to me. In short, it could have been better.
Nazi_Fighter_David
"The Scalphunters" opens with an illiterate frontier fur trapper named Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster) refusing to trade his furs, with the Kiowa Indians, for a runaway field slave… But at the end, he is forced at gunpoint to do that and Bass finds himself, in one moment, the owner of Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis), an escapee from Louisiana, formerly of the Comanche tribe, until stolen by the Kiowas… Lee, an African—slave by employment, black by color—results one of the highest educated families in Louisiana, who can read and write… Lee's intention was to circle south, as far as Mexico, because the Mexicans have a law against the slavery trade… Bass' immediate plan was to catch up with the Kiowas and get back his pack horse and furs… But his plan soon failed when a band of scalphunters led by a dangerous double-crosser, Jim Howie (Telly Savalas) attack the poor Indians killing almost all of them and taking, by the way, Bass' property… Bass— a man who moves mountains to get what he wants— stampedes their wagons and makes the scalphunters' horses dangerous to ride… The sweetest, and in some ways the funniest moments come out when Bass talks to his horse… In one scene, he gets so excited, and turns back to his stallion saying: "By god, you have got an idea!" Telly Savalas makes Kojak a charmer, but in Pollack's film he is a psychopathic bounty hunter who slaughters a dozen Indians… Kate (Shelley Winters)—a cigar-puffing doxy qualified to do things to any man—is sick about her lover's wagon… She complains that she lives like a squaw… Kate's dream was to live like a lady in a fancy house with servants… Winters delivers the best line of the whole movie when she exclaimed at the end of the film: "What the hell? They're all men."Ossie Davis comes out with a real sense of humor… In one scene he explains to Kate the benefits of the common cactus, known to the Comanches as Maguey… He makes her believe that this plant was used in the ancient times by the Queen of Sheba to restore the natural oils to her beautiful blond hair… It was nice to see Nick Cravat in a modest role as one of Savalas' men… As you remember, Cravat was ideally cast as Lancaster's sidekick, Piccolo, in the flamboyant "The Flame and the Arrow" in 1950, a spoof of the Robin Hood genre, set against the castle battlements and banquets halls of medieval Lombardy