The Scalphunters (1968)

Throw you in a pigpen, and you'd come out vice-president of the hogs.

The Scalphunters is directed by Sydney Pollack and adapted to screenplay by William W. Norton from the novel of the same name written by Ed Friend. 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. Taking his furs they give him as payment a well educated slave, Joseph Lee (Davis), who they had previously commandeered from a group of Comanches. With Joseph tagging along, Joe sets about pursuing the Kiowa to reclaim his furs, but the Indians fall victim to a band of ruthless Scalphunters led by Jim Howie (Savalas), who gain his furs whilst also by accident capture Joseph. 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. Both men poles apart, but both able to benefit the other if racial barriers can be broke down? 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. Be it Joe Bass leaping about the rocks and causing a rock avalanche, or the Scalphunters horses going loco, film never lacks for genuine thrills. Some great stunt work in here as well. It's a fine screenplay of much intelligence, not least because it doesn't crowbar in its messages, while it also doesn't patronise the Joseph Lee character. Even as the laughs flit in and out of proceedings, the script pings with smarts as brains are afforded the black man and the ignorance belongs to whitey.

With the cast on fine form and Bernstein scoring it with trademark robustness, it rounds out as a hugely enjoyable Western. So pick a favourite scene and a favourite character, whilst all the time acknowledging that behind the froth and machismo beats a potent thematic heart. 8/10

***Amusing late 60s Western with Lancaster, Ossie Davis and Savalas***

A rugged trapper (Burt Lancaster) is forced by a band of Kiowas to trade his valuable furs for an educated runaway slave (Ossie Davis). To get the furs back, they follow the Indians and, then, a band of scalphunters, led by a boisterous bald guy (Telly Savalas). Shelley Winters is also on hand.

What’s notable about “The Scalphunters” (1968), besides the cast, is that the entire story takes place in the Southwest wilderness. There are no towns, buildings or teepees in sight. But there’s some gorgeous location photography.

While there are entertaining comedic bits, don’t expect anything outrageous like “Blazing Saddles” (1974). This is more in the mode of contemporaneous Westerns like “Bandoleros” (1968), “The War Wagon” (1967) and “The Undefeated” (1969). It’s not as great as the first or as good as the second, but it’s about on par with the latter.

The film runs 1 hour and 42 minutes and was shot in Arizona (Quartzsite, Parker & Harquahala Mountains) and Mexico (Barranca del Cobre, Chihuahua, Durango & Sierra de Organos).

GRADE: B-

If you are looking for an antithesis to so many broody and dialogue-light westerns, then this could well do the trick. “Joe” (Burt Lancaster) is a trapper who is robbed of his winter’s work by some local Indians and left with “Joseph Lee” (Ossie Davis) by way of a trade. He is unsure what he will do with his erudite new travelling companion, but that can wait until he retrieves his furs. Before he gets the chance, though, they are attacked by big “Jim” (Telly Savalas) and his gang of renegade scalp-hunters who can get $25 an head for a scalp! By now, the two in pursuit have developed a bit of a rapport, so the latter man is volunteered to join the thieves in the guise of a recently escaped Indian looking to rejoin his tribe. Unconvinced, they agree to take him along thinking they will sell him, and so now he can set about distracting “Jim” long enough for “Joe” to sneak in and repossess his pelts. Well you know that phrase about best laid plans? As they head towards Mexico, it becomes clear that “Kate” (Shelley Winters) is the power behind the throne amongst the marauders and as “Lee” works to indulge some of her more feminine pleasures and “Joe” comes up with all sorts of schemes to discombobulate the rest of them, what chance they can stay alive long enough to get his mule back? Though Lancaster is confidently entertaining here, I thought it was Davis who really owned his role - delivering some wise-cracking dialogue that offers thinly veiled comment on issues around race and status whilst also playing well with a Winters who rarely settled for a damsel in distress role in these films. She, in turn, gels well with a charismatic Savalas to leave us with a solid, well paced and very gently satiric story of mules with two and four legs.