Customer Rating: Summary: the assassination of the mechanical cow Comment: This Charles Bronson vehicle from 1977 is a pretty good film if you can get past the cheap looking mechanical bull. Directed by J.Lee Thompson ("Kinjite: forbidden subjects" which also starred Bronson) and written for the screen by Richard Sale based on his own 1975 novel "The White Buffalo". The legendary "Wild Bill" Hickok and Chief Crazy Horse clash in a alleged dispute over an albino buffalo. Fact or folklore (was Jack Wardens's character "Charlie Zane" really a sidekick of Wild Bill's?) and poor special effects really didn't hurt its underlying appeal. John Barry's solid musical score also lends it credibility.
What makes this film so attractive isn't the fact that Bronson plays the lead role. It's the supporting cast that gives this film an initial degree of respectability. Clint Walker is convincing as the disgruntled Whistling Jack who has a score to settle with Bill. Slim Pickens (Blazing Saddles & Dr. Strangeglove) is at his cowboy best as the stage coach driver and John Carradine gives a nice cameo as the town undertaker. But its Will Sampson (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) who gives a standout performance as Chief Crazy Horse. However, I'm not sure this movie would warrant a repeat performance without his presence.
olofpalme63 Customer Rating: Summary: Beware. Region 2 DVD Won't Play on US Players Comment: Please be aware that this DVD is Region 2 encoded and will not play on most US DVD players which are Region 1. You can buy player which will ignore the region code on Amazon - just search for "multi region dvd player".
Customer Rating: Summary: "jaws" on the western plains Comment: this is another of charles bronson's 70's westerns that tried to do something different,and it works if you let it. blasted by everyone when it came out it really is a good take on "jaws" and "moby dick" in the west. bronson is wild bill hickock,slowly being eatten away by the clap,and having visions of the white buffalo of the title and it's coming for him so he starts looking for it. will sampson is crazy horse who must kill the beast to help his daughter(killed by the anamial)to get to heaven. this has some great scenery and some fine action scenes,so if you like bronson or westerns that have a little food for thought check this one out. Customer Rating: Summary: Western Noire Comment: I first saw this film in my teens, and it's stayed in my head ever since. I've only been able to find it on DVD with Korean menus, but I thank goodness for the widescreen version!
To the classical western lover, this movie offers the dialogue and characters, but will disappoint with its lack of evil cattle barons, bank robbing villains, etc. but to the avid movie watcher, this is a real treat. It's dark, real dark. Alot of it is studio work, but even the exterior shooting is dim and really, though possibly inadvertently, the film is film-noire.
Bronson's dead-pan delivery fits right in here (I'd have hated to see him in a romantic comedy!) Will Sampson has never disappointed me, even in such disastrous vehicles as Poltergeist III, but in his role as Crazy Horse (Worm) he is simply perfect (Hoka hai!) All of the supporting casting was perfect as well.
The "Moby Dick" parallel is accurate....except we have the added complexity of two Ahab's, who should be enemies, but find themselves united. Probably my favorite western!
Customer Rating: Summary: like the song by Ted Nugent, this movie rocks!, Comment: I like this movie a lot; I wish I had seen it when I was younger, I'm sure it would have an even firmer place in my heart. As it is, I still admire this odd, surreal western monster movie. It has more in common with Moby Dick than Jaws, with its various characters pushed onward by fate, following nightmares and omens to their respective destinies, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. It also features some of the greatest western slang I have ever had the pleasure of hearing;the script by Richard Sale is a marvel of cowpoke linguistics. Admittedly, Charles Bronson is best when he is silent and here he is as verbose as you will ever hear him but he seems to really shine through in an oddly human and likable way when he is acting opposite Will Sampson. Jack Warden seems to take extra special delight in handling his dialogue with a curmudgeonly precision and it is delicious.I grew up in a rural Pacific Northwest town--I know my redneck and cowboy talk and their attendant mannerisms--so trust me when I say that the dialogue alone in this film makes it worth viewing; this is as close to cowboy poetry as you'll ever hear. But you also get this giant monster buffalo that never manages to look like anything other than a big mechanical puppet--but that doesn't detract from the pleasure of this film one bit! I would venture to praise some of the quick-cutting and crazy dolly shots used in the sequences with the animatronic beast, which comes across marvelously well in conjunction with the bellowing roar it is given by the sound effects department and John Barry's ominous score.I have seen this film several times and the buffalo always surprises me by its effectiveness; it has its place in my fond memories alongside the mutated bear in John Frankenheimer's unjustly lambasted PROPHECY.
