Native Americans began to be portrayed as human beings in a number of 1950s westerns, including "Apache", "Broken Arrow", "Cochise", "Hondo.",and (arguably) John Ford's masterpiece "The Searchers." John Ford also made the first western in which an African American was a hero (indeed, close to a superhero) in "Sergeant Rutledge" in 1960. As welcome a relief as this was from the kind of roles Step'n Fetchit played (for instance, in Anthony Mann's "Bend of the River"), it is the brave white hero unfazed by prejudice who is the protagonist in "Sergeant Rutledge" (just as in films such as "Cry Freedom", "Armistad", "Mississippi Burning", etc.).

While Step'n Fetchit was an object of derision, by the late 1960s and early 1970s there were some western films verging on being comedies in which the black leads were the smartest characters (Ossie Davis in "The Scalphunters," Lou Gossett in "The Skin Game," Cleavon Little in "Blazing Saddles") and the white leads (Burt Lancaster, James Garner, Gene Wilder) worked with them (in the same order, as grudging eventual partners, as established partners, and as admiring inferiors). The villains in these films are comic figures (Mel Brooks, Alex Karras, and Slim Pickens) in "Blazing Saddles," savvy and dangerous if gross (Telly Savalas) in "The Scalphunters," and chillingly uncomic (Ed Asner) in "The Skin Game." I don't think that the white racists took the slot for mindless barbarians vacated by the humanized Apaches, because the white villains (even Alex Karras's "Mongo" in "Blazing Saddles") have some nuance.

I don't doubt that the writers, directors, and actors of these movies wanted to contribute to making racism look ridiculous, but, as I wrote not long ago about "The Skin Game," treating he buying and selling of human beings as material for comedy trivializes the horrors (just as "Life Is Beautiful" does the Nazi death camps). The commerce in human beings is considerably less central to "The Scalphunters" than to "The Skin Game," and closer to the classic comedies of slave cunning of Plautus (thanks to Hashal for reminding me of that).

Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis) an escaped Louisiana plantation house slave is heading for freedom in Mexico (though it looks like he is already there: the film was shot in location in the Mexican state of Durango). He claims that he is Comache by adoption (dubbed "Black Feather"). A band of Kiowa led by Two Crows (Armando Silvestre) has captured him and leaves him with a(n anachronistic) mountain man, Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster), when they make off with his winter's haul of fur (the geography again confuses me in this regard...)

Joe Bass considers how much Joseph Lee will sell for, though his obsessive concern (he is as fixated as James Stewart in various Anthony Mann westerns or Clint Eastwood in his trilogy of Sergio Leone films, Lancaster's own later Valdez in "Valdez Is Coming!") is recovering his fur. Drunk on his whiskey, most of the Kiowa band is slaughtered by a gang of outlaws (called "bushwhackers," which I though was anachronistic a term from Civil War Missouri, but which was first attested in 1834) led by Telly Savalas. (I don't understand how they are going to collect the bounties on the Indian scalps they take if they are wanted for robberies and evading lawmen...)

Joe Bass follows his now twice-stolen furs. I don't want to spoil the pleasures of the chase. It has some very humorous aspects, but—somewhat surprisingly for a semicomedy—Joe Bass's stratagems seem possible (in contrast to Clint Eastwood and others shooting more than half a dozen men with a six-shooter and before any of them shoot the hero). But Lancaster (who started out as an acrobat) definitely had some moves, even in his 50s.

Spending most of the time dressed only in his long-johns (sometimes with, sometimes without his boots) Telly Savalas is not a total caricature, nor is his genial ex-hooker, even though she is portrayed by Shelley Winters who was often over-the-top as a harridan. She has some sweetness and some acumen (more than Savalas, less than Davis). She is neither the helpless respectable woman who must be rescued or protected nor the femme fatale (Pandora) of many other westerns.

Joseph Lee, who commands a repertoire of Latin sayings and has to rely on his wit, gets most of the good lines. Joe Bass, who is illiterate and lives off the land without having much contact with other human beings can communicate with the Kiowa and dismisses Joseph Lee's verbal dexterity. Lee eventually wins Bass's respect and Lee more than holds his own once he fights (Dabney Coleman, Telly Savalas, and, finally, Lancaster in an epic of literally "dirty fighting" further spiced by what is going on in the background).

"The Scalphunters" mixes action heroics, ironic wit, and outright farce in an entertaining way. I'm sure that I could snip out ten or so of the 102 minutes with no loss, but they are not all together. There are scenes that drag, but it's not that the middle drags. Elmer Bernstein provided a not particularly memorable but serviceable musical score, and the dry mountain scenery is well photographed. What makes the movie is the comic timing of Davis and Lancaster. One would think that they were given good lines with which to work, but screenwriter William W. Norton's other work is unremarkable (and director Sidney Pollack's very uneven), so I wonder how much credit should go to Ossie Davis (who wrote "Purlie Victorious" for himself).


---

Other blacks in the old west flicks

Woody Strode as "Sergeant Rutledge"
http://www.epinions.com/content_75794845316

Sidney Poitier in "Duel at Diablo"
http://www.epinions.com/content_8241280166

Lou Gossett playing "The Skin Game"
http://www.epinions.com/content_79085866628

plus Cleavon Little in Mel Brooks's "Blazing Saddles", Danny Golver in "Silverado," and Morgan Freeman in Clint Eastwood's "The Unforgiven"



Recommended:
Yes