The Scalphunters

***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.