The Scalphunters

Plot synopsis:
Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster), an American fur trapper, is making his way back home with a full cargo of hides when he encounters a group of Kiowa Indians led by Two Crows (Armando Silvestre), who insist on taking his furs. As "payment" they offer him a slave, Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis), who they had previously taken from a group of Comanches. Reluctantly, realising he cannot fight them, Bass agrees to the trade.
Bass is slightly bemused by his new companion, who is a well-educated and refined house slave, unused to the ways of the West. Bass orders him to help him recover the furs from the Kiowa. Lee only agrees to help if Bass agrees to take him to Mexico where slavery is outlawed. Bass is not amused, but the two strike up a friendly relationship, with Bass teaching Lee how to catch food in the West.
As Lee and Bass come upon the Kiowa, they watch them being ambushed by a group of scalphunters, white Americans and Mexicans who were offered a bounty by the government for each Native scalp they brought in. These scalphunters, led by Jim Howie (Telly Savalas), kill the Kiowa and also steal the furs which Bass had hoped to recover. He and Lee are forced to track the party, hoping to take back the furs.
Unfortunately, while spying on them, Lee tips over a cliff and is captured by the scalphunters, who decide they can sell him for $1500 in Galveston, Texas. As they travel southwards, Jim Howie's girlfriend, Kate (Shelley Winters), reveals to Lee that they are heading for Mexico. He begins to win her favor, by doing her hair and telling her fortune, hoping she will persuade Howie to take him with them across the border, rather than sell him.
Bass meanwhile has been following closely on their trail, and at one point he pins them down with sniper fire, forcing them to let loose the packhorse carrying the furs. He is ambushed, however, and the scalphunters recover the furs and proceed on their way. Approaching their camp at night, Bass tries to persuade Lee to help him, but the slave is now set on going to Mexico and refuses him assistance.
Bass kills several of the scalphunters, by intentionally starting a rock avalanche in the mountains near where they are situated. After again failing to secure the furs, Bass contaminates the water of a nearby creek with locoweed, a toxic plant that causes the scalphunters' horses to run and buck wildly as they drink the water. Now thoroughly fed up, and wanting to make it to Mexico in safety, they send Lee as a courier to Bass telling him he can keep the furs. A wary Bass comes down to collect the lone packhorse, and is ambushed by Howie who had always intended to break the deal. In an ensuing struggle Howie is shot dead by Lee.
The bickering Bass and Lee then break into a long fight, in which neither can defeat the other. Meanwhile, a group of Kiowa attack and overrun the scalphunters. Two Crows, who had survived an earlier massacre, has fetched reinforcements. He takes back the furs, per their earlier deal. The story ends with Bass and Lee, now friends, preparing to follow the Kiowa to take back the furs.

Tags: cult, satire, violence

Review:
The Scalphunters was the first of two films Sydney Pollack directed with Burt Lancaster.
In fact according to a recent biography of Lancaster, Burt was literally trying Pollack out on this western before giving him an opportunity to direct the very expensive Castle Keep for him the following year.
We all bow to old age at some point.Sydney Pollack actually started his association with Burt Lancaster on the set of The Young Savages where he was an acting coach to some of the street kids who were playing gang members.
It was his first introduction into motion pictures, he had previously directed and acted in a number of television productions.Burt is fur trapper Joe Bass who gets an offer from the Kiowa Indians he can't refuse.
Burt's Joe Bass is not exactly a boy scout, but this crowd truly nauseates him.The Scalphunters are headed by Telly Savalas and his cigar smoking refugee from a bordello of a woman, Shelley Winters.
And Savalas and his crowd are as mean a bunch as you'll ever see in a film, yet some of the funniest bits in the film involve Winters and Savalas.The Scalphunters is a really funny western that if you think about it teaches some good lessons we could all use..
I guess we have to look at these films from a generation view point in what the great Shirley Mclain has recently stated in that they should start to make films for the over 50s age groups.The film of today certainly seem to be targeted for a ' a different generation" as often I have to switch the box over to see if there is something wrong with the stereo settings as all I can hear is music and a very muffled speech.I find the older films, as in this case, to be irreplaceable and standing in support of the old saying "they don't make 'em like that anymore" With taking anything away from the modern ladies of the screen, were can you find another Shelly, warm, funny, voluptuous with a distinctive class she retained to the end.
Perhaps this movie should be titled "'The Crimson Pirate' meets 'Toostie'".If you've got a sense of humor and are able to suspend you disbelief for a couple of hours or so, "The Scalphunters" will give you a good evenings entertainment.
Ossie Davis is a perfect match for Lancaster as the extraordinarily wise & well-educated but highly wary escaped slave Joseph Lee, who must continually rein in his instinct to trump the cruder but highly canny in his own way Joe Bass.
The Scalphunters themselves are a group of lowlifes led by Telly Savalas as Jim Howie (in the best role I ever saw him play in a movie), a nasty but not unwise lout who spends most of the day & night in his baggy long johns.
And it's not just Burt who's full of enthusiasm, you got Ossie Davis giving him a run for his money, and Telly Savalas (as the baddie), who always appears to me to have been a bit bored in straight roles, completing a trio of guys having an absolute ball.
Incidentally I think that enthusiasm is why Lacaster's great transcendent role in "The Swimmer" (1968 - same year as this one) is so heart-breaking, because he's playing a bust enthusiast, and you can see it.The title "The Scalphunters" is severely misleading, makes it sound like the movie is about Indians killing folks.
This is the foundation for the story of Joe Bass, (Burt Lancaster) mountain man and fur trapper.
Reluctantly, Bass is stuck with a house slave named Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis) who possesses what few men have in 1860, an education.
In addition to trading his furs to the Indians, they in turn lose them to a marauding gang of murderous Scalphunters, led by their leader Jim Howie (Telly Savalas).
It fairly consistently, and regularly, reverses the stereotypes we have come to expect of films with titles like "The Scalphunters." Bass, the white man, is completely at home in the wilderness, "an ill-mannered, unlettered oaf" to be sure, but highly skilled and fearless.
Well, the Scalphunters has Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis, Telly Savalas, and Shelly Winters.This is a memorable classic that addresses race relations, injustices against native Americans, the corrupting influences of property, and the drama of the West in an entertaining way.
Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave (Ossie Davis) , a rugged trapper (Burt Lancaster) vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them .
Very good acting by the great Burt Lancaster as a fur trapper who sets out in pursuit the robbers .
Sympathetic Ossie Davis as Joseph Lee , a slave who helps Lancaster to fight enemies and retrieve the pelts .
Wildly entertaining western romp with the still athletic Lancaster (as a frontier trapper) and Davis (as runaway slave) reluctantly teamed against a band of bandits led by Savalas.
Burt Lancaster loses his furs to a party of Kiowa indians , who saddle him with unwanted runaway slave Ossie Davis in return.
In pursuit of his furs, Lancaster sees them taken over by Savalas' band of 'Scalphunters' and the story plays out until the end as a game of cat and mouse with Davis in the middle.
Sydney Pollack displayed to us an unusual picture getting together having two kind of different persons who clash along the entire picture their own idea of what place they really belong, the black slave running for a free life is plenty literate guy who knows that he is in the same level than anybody else, in other hand has a rough white guy raised in a wild western illiterate, what's seemed an easy interation slowly becames a personal struggle, that's the main subject implied wised by the director, the hard feelings will growing through the picture until a break point, interesting approach of human nature, in an humor mode, Ossie best picture ever and Burt makes what is expect of the great star!!!Resume:First watch: 2010 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5.
Lancaster certainly fits the role well as Joe Bass the nemesis of Jim Howie, Telly Savalas, and the on and off again captive of Joseph Lee, Ozzie Davis.
It's also a civil rights western, with the central relationship being that between backwoods Burt and the over educated ex slave Ossie Davis.
So-So. 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.
One day he's accosted by Indians including the character Two Crows (Armando Silvestre), who force him to turn over his prized furs in exchange for a slave named Joseph (Ossie Davis).
Jim Howie (an amusing Telly Savalas) is the outlaw leader, Kate (Shelley Winters) his high strung wife.Filmed in glorious widescreen by Duke Callaghan and Richard Moore, the Western comedy "The Scalphunters" was written by William W.
Set in 1860 somewhere outside the territory of the United States, it might have been called "How the Runaway Slave Joseph Lee Got His Fists Back" or "The Furry Treasure of Sierra Madre." It's a Pollack picture, so it's genial, good-natured, entertaining, and only a little improbable, and the good guys endure to fight another day.
...it seems impossible to fail,and yet,Pollack's effort seems pussyfooting:is it a true western?or an allegory about the absurdity of slavery?His black man is hardly believable,I do not mean that a black man cannot be educated,far  be it from me to think this!But in those conditions,definitely not.It makes me think of Candice Bergen's white woman character in "Soldier Blue"(1970) who seemed to come out of a draft dodgers students meeting.Lancaster's part is never very interesting,and not worthy of this great thespian .The same goes for Shelley Winters who is wasted .In this era when Sidney Pollack gave his most extraordinary works ("this property is condemned"(1966) his towering achievement in 1969 "they shoot horses don't they?" and "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972))"the scalphunters " is really no more than a curio.Note the analogy:in "scalphunters",Lancaster is given an educated slave,and in "Jeremiah Johnson" ,Redford gains a squaw..
A year before Sydney Pollack hit it big w/"They Shoot Horses Don't They" he made this comic western riffing on the phrase "now you have it, now you don't." Burt Lancaster & Ossie Davis are paired up as the strangest of bedfellows trying to get Lancaster's wares back from a marauding band of scalp hunters led by Telly Savalas & Shelley Winters.Alternately funny & sharply acted, this late 60's entry further pushed the envelope on what Western's were soon becoming.Like the other great American art form jazz, this Western upends many of the stalwart modes we had become used to & plays like an extended riff on a kid's game w/gunfights & a last minute calvary save (in the guise of a pack of Indians) thrown in for good measure..
"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.
With a fine cast lead by the legendary Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis, Telly Savalis and Shelly Winters and with a lot of memorable dialogue and scenes, this is a great comedy western (Minor spoilers).Joe Bass (Lancaster) is a fur trapper who has spent the whole winter collecting furs.
When a pack of Indians lead by Two Crows take Joe's furs and leave him with Joseph Lee (Davis), an educated slave, Bass pursues the Indians to get his furs back.
The two have a series of misadventures that also involves a party of Scalphunters lead by Jim Howie (Savalis), who take the furs from the Indians and also take Joseph Lee. Bass now has to get both his furs and his slave back.The film works on many levels beside comedy.
The end of the movie, when Lancaster and Davis become covered in mud and are indistinguishable has some symbolism; the white and black man, while of a different color, are the same people..
It stars Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis, Telly Savalas and Shelley Winters.
A Panavision/De Luxe Colour production, music is by Elmer Bernstein and cinematography by Richard Moore and Duke Callaghan.Joe Bass (Lancaster) is a fur trapper making his way home with his latest haul when he is stopped by Kiowa Indians.
It's Joe Bass against the rest, and only Joseph knows what the Scalphunters are up against."Those furs and that man out there are the Scorpio satanic configuration of death for Jim Howie"Impressively mounted by Pollack, gorgeously shot at Durango, Mexico, The Scalphunters is an interesting blend of a Western action comedy with drama and Civil Rights morality.
Film is structured simply by thrusting Lancaster's ignorant and illiterate man of the wilderness together with Davis' literate but ostracised slave.
Once Joseph falls into the hands of the Scalphunters, film sees Joseph once more held captive, but by using his nous he may be able to finally gain his freedom should the group make it to Mexico.All the time Joe Bass is tracking the group, picking them off any chance he gets, this means the banter and lively group dynamic of the Scalphunters is pleasantly interrupted by an action scene of some standing.
In part, it is a slapstickish reluctant buddy comedy involving Burt Lancaster, as trapper Joe Bass, and escaped slave Joseph Lee(Ossie Davis), as well as the often caustic patter between complaining floozy Kate(Shelly Winters) and Jim Howie(Telly Savalas), boss of the fleeing outlaw gang.
The trade of Joseph Lee forced upon 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 much poorer or diminished lands or goods frequently forced on various Native American tribes.Joseph Lee hopes to get across the Mexican border, where slavery is outlawed and blacks welcomed.
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.
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.
Burt Lancaster is amusing as the very determined Joe Bass, a fur trader whose catch is swiped with runaway slave Ossie Davis given to him in exchange.
It seems like the theme of the movie expressed in my summary line, a quote from Joseph Winfield Lee (Ossie Davis) to Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster), was used again in 1982 with Stallone's "First Blood".
The analogy is apt, Joe Bass uses his tracking and hunting skills to avenge the theft of his winter stock of furs, first stolen by the Kiowas, and then again by Jim Howie's (Telly Savalas) 'Scalphunters'.
I guess it works either way, though nothing else in the story ever pointed to his having spent time with Indians.I had to laugh when Savalas's character called himself a curly haired, blue eyed angel, but you'd probably have to catch a film that came out a few years later to see him with hair.
The direction is excellent.Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis, Telly Savalas and Shelley Winters all turn in excellent performances.
"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).
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.
I think the recent success of comedy-Westerns such as CAT BALLOU and THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL impacted this film--but these other films were consistent in their style, while THE SCALPHUNTERS sure wasn't.Burt Lancaster plays one of the less sympathetic roles of his career.
Plus I liked seeing the relationship between Telly Savalas and Shelley Winters--their dialog was pretty funny at times and how Winters ended the film was rather satisfying.Unfortunately, all the scenes, when placed together, are a mess and just don't fit together well.
The acting is excellent, with nice performances by Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis, Shelly Winters and Telly Savalas.Burt Lancaster seemed to particularly enjoy his role.
Because Ossie Davis' character is a slave, the movie must be set in the pre-Civil War period, when there were no repeating rifles.