The Scalphunters (1968)

Oscar®-winning* director Sydney Pollack delivers a "rousing good show" (The Film Daily) with this fast-paced western full of "irresistible humor" and "delightful ironies" (Motion Picture Herald). Starring Oscar® 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 furs and leave him a runaway slave (Davis) in exchange he's determined to get his property back. But when the Indians are attacked by outlaws 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)!System Requirements: Running Time 103 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 027616923615 Manufacturer No: 1008330 Product Description

The Scalphunters

I know... it's an old movie...but I liked it when it was new and Amazon was the only place I could find it, (like I knew it would be)...Delivery was fast & the merchandise was in good shape...Is it any wonder I deal mainly with Amazon? August 4, 2008

entertaining Western parody on race relations.

This unique entertaining film is, in part, a traditional Western, with several skirmishes involving "Indians", a gang of scalp-hungry outlaws, and a loner trapper, who comes to grief from both. In part, it's a slapstickish reluctant buddy comedy, involving Bert Lancaster, as trapper Joe Bass, and escaped slave Joseph Lee(Ossie Davis), as well as the often caustic patter between floozy Kate(Shelly Winters) and Jim Howie(Telly Savalas), boss of the fleeing outlaw gang. The trade of Joseph Lee forced on Bass by the Kiowas in exchange for his year's catch of furs and pack horse serves as a parody on the exchange of desirable lands or other property for poor or diminished lands or goods often forced on various Native American tribes.
Joseph Lee hopes to get across the Mexican border, where slavery is outlawed and blacks welcomed. He's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Mexico. Joe Bass's immediate goal is to retrieve his furs and horse. At first, Lee plays along with helping Bass retrieve his furs. But when he is captured by an outlaw gang, who stole Bass's furs from the Kiowas and who happen to be headed for Mexico, his loyalty between Bass and the outlaws is split. Both talk down to him, as if he were intrinsically inferior, and talk about selling him on the slave market. Part of the comedy relates to the fact that Lee clearly has absorbed far more high class white culture from his former owners than Bass or the outlaws will ever absorb. Remember, this film was released in 1968, the year Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Bass nearly recaptures his furs several times, with or without the help of Lee. In addition to an uncanny ability to track down his adversaries and to escape their far greater numbers, he surrealistically pushes quite a few 1000 lb boulders down on them in quick succession, then later poisons a water hole with locoweed juice, to make their horses revert into untamed bucking broncos(an idea he generously gives his horse credit for).
In the final showdown between Bass and Howie, Lee has to decide whom to help, with the consideration in his mind of how he might best get to Mexico. Lee and Bass then have a long, sometimes slapstickish, fight in a muddy watering hole, ending in a draw, both covered with the grayish mud, thus enhancing the impression of equality. But,in a sense, they are both losers, as the Kiowas return . Taking advantage of the distraction of Lee and Bass and the much weakened outlaw gang, Two Crows reclaims the contested furs and pack horse, as well as the now unclaimed Shelly Winters and what's left of the gang's supplies.
Some think the film should have ended with Lee escaping both Bass and Howie, with Bass's furs and horses to boot, as he almost did. I can certainly see merit to that view. However, the furs and pack horse rightfully belonged to either the Kiowas or Bass(depending on your view point) Besides, we needed to give Lee a chance to show he could duke it out with Bass physically, as well as intellectually, demonstrating that he is at least as respectable as Bass and the other white men, if not more so. Also, we needed to give the Kiowas a chance to revenge their loss. Yes, the parting scene leaves us wondering what became of Bass and Lee, supposedly the two main characters, and thus is less than satisfying.
I should point out than many slaves did make it to freedom in Mexico, often with the aid of Mexicans in Texas. I should also point out that the Kiowas and Comanches were long-term military allies in the 1800s, thus Lee's claim that Kiowas raided his host Comanches is unlikely, historically. June 30, 2008

Fantastic

I thought this was one of the better movies I have seen in months.What a acting job by Burt Landcaster,you could never tell what he was going to do next.And Osie Davis was incredible.
I buy alot of old cowboy movies and sometimes you strike gold and this is pure gold.bOb April 17, 2008

Seriously Underrated Classic

This terribly misunderstood movie suffers from its refusal to fully subscribe to the cliches of a single genre. It is a western: horses, guns, parched landscape and all. It is also a bit of a savage social sendup. The scalphunters of the title were white men (and their women) who killed Native Americans for money. The bounty for the murder was paid on their scalps.
There's also a wonderful theme about the wary ex-slave-one of many in the west who've been left out of the western movie genre.
This was very subversive stuff back when the film was shot and the slight nod-and-wink that the director and cast make to the viewers were post-modern back in a pre-post-modern time.
Along with its many layers, this is a crackin' good story.Telly Savalas does his best work ever as the leader of the scalphunters and Shelly Winters plays the role she was born to. Ossie Davis plays the rôle that made his career with canny delicacy and Burt Lancaster brings a physical grace to the character of the fur trader who is robbed first by Native Americans and then by the scalphunters.

The film is so iconic that in at least one novelbang BANG: A Novel, it becomes a sexy, fifth date movie rental.

Lynn Hoffman, author of New Short Course in Wine,The January 23, 2008

Shaggy Dog Story Out West

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 December 5, 2007

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