Sfida a White Buffalo

I know a lot of people are not too impressed with this film. However when i first saw this about 14 years ago the images and atmosphere and chilly locations made an impact on my mind. I have seen this film several times and agree it is not one of Charles Bronson's best efforts but I still love watching this film regularly. The hunt for the white buffalo in the Black Hills is presented as a psychological battle in the mind of Wild Bill Hickok (Bronson) and a spiritual one for Chief Crazy Horse (Will Sampson). Sure the creature itself may look unrealistic,but the concept of battling your nightmares and the teaming up of two racial enemies as well as the dark cold almost sinister locations make this an interesting experience in my view. I also feel the dialogue is extremely appropriate with the use of 'Gold Diggers slang'. I am sure I am in a minority when I say I like this film so much.

This rare but intriguing western deals with Will Bill Hickok ( Charles Bronson)who suffers several nightmares about an enormous white buffalo. Will Hickok join forces with Indian chief, Crazy Horse, previous to Little Big Horn battle, (here also named Worm and well played by Will Sampson) and a rifleman named Zane (Jack Warden) to track down a breathtaking white buffalo in the Black Hills . Hickok holds a dodgy obsession with the mythical animal until a spectacular final duel.

This strange picture packs nois action , thrills , chills, tension , violence and semi-surreal outdoors. The highlights of the movie are the impressive mountain of bones and the buffalo attacks with the victims running afoul that deliver excitement enough. Packs something of 'Moby Dick' theme with the obstinate fight of a man to chase his prey . Other reviewers say that the white buffalo represents the fear to mortality . Features good performances from starring trio , Bronson, Sampson and Warden. Ample plethora of veteran secondaries , such as Slim Pickens as a stagecoach conductor , Stuart Whitman as a passenger , Clint Walker as a gunfighter, Douglas Fowley as a train conductor and also narrator , besides John Carradine . Other supporting cast in minor roles are the following ones : Ed Lauter, Martin Kove and of course Kim Novak in a special appearance. Although much is filmed in studio, the freezing frontiers , filthy towns and snowy locations are shot in Bronson Canyon Los Angeles, Chana New Mexico and Canon City, Colorado. Appropriate and atmospheric musical score by the classic composer John Barry.

The picture is produced in average budget by Dino De Laurentis who made a trilogy with giant beasts (King Kong, Orca, White buffalo) and creature design by Carlo Rambaldi (E. T.). The film was professionally directed by J. Lee Thomson who directed good Western ( McKenna gold) and all kinds of genres such as Sci-Fi (Conquest and Battle of planet of apes), terror (reincarnation of Peter Proud, Eye of the devil), adventures (King of the sun, Taras Bulba) and Warlike ( Guns of Navarone, Von Braun). J. Lee Thomson working from the 50s in England, finished his career making Chuck Norris (Firewalker) and Charles Bronson vehicles (Evil that men do, Messenger of death, Death Wish 4 : Crackdown, Caboblanco, St Ives). Watchable results for this outlandish Western.

Although I can't find any information on what the budget for White Buffalo was, I suspect that the Dino de Laurentiis Corporation provided a reasonable amount of money considering they were 1977 dollars. I mention this because the most typical comments state that the laughable buff effects were due to low budget constraints.

But consider this. 2001: A Space Odyssey's effects were set to screen nine years before 1977 and Star Wars was released the same year as White Buffalo.

So special effects, although not CGI, were certainly advanced enough to satisfy those who have commented negatively here. So ... why were more advanced effects not used?

My theory is that the makers wanted to create a surreal, dreamlike feeling, much like it might have been to listen to an Indian storyteller around a village campfire a hundred and fifty years ago. In those times, human imagination could not have constructed the special effects images that we take for granted in our present-day monsters. Modern effects would detract from the misty, myth-like ambiance of this movie ... the myth of James Butler Hickok, the myth of Crazy Horse, the myth of the white buffalo.

When combined with John Barry's haunting score, this movie really has an effect on me. I give it an 8 out of 10 and hope to see it on a 1.85:1 widescreen DVD soon. I also hope the sound will be remastered better than the bloody mono track many of these cheap disk production companies are passing off on us!

...with shades of Moby Dick thrown in. Wild Bill Hickok has nightmares about a giant white buffalo (a foreshadowing of his own death?) which he feels can only be eliminated by hunting down a giant white buffalo that is striking terror in the Black Hills. Will Sampson plays Crazy Horse, also seeking the same creature after it rampaged through his village and killed his child.

It's all pure fiction, of course, and Charles Bronson's casting as Hickok is laughable, historically speaking, but, I suppose, no more so than that of half a dozen other actors over the years being cast as Hickcok. One historically accurate aspect of the film is that, rather than wearing a holster, Bronson wears a scarlet sash around his waist in which he tucks his guns, as did the real Hickok at times.

The performances are quite good, and there is a colorful supporting cast of familiar faces including Jack Warden in a sizable role as a one eyed Indian-hating frontiersman who goes on the buffalo hunt with Bronson as well as smaller guest star appearances by Kim Novak, Clint Walker, John Carradine, Stuart Whitman and Cara Williams. J. Lee Thompson (Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear, Mackenna's Gold) was the director.

The white buffalo is presented as an almost legendary larger than life destructive force, not unlike a lumbering four legged version of Melville's great white whale, one that causes rocks to tumble down the sides of mountains when it lets out a giant bellow and can charge though walls of ice and snow. At one point, in fact, in a direct parallel to Herman Melville's tale, Crazy Horse will leap on the animal's back to repeatedly stab it with a spear.

The problem for the film, though, are in those pivotal scenes involving the buffalo in which, unfortunately, the creature looks exactly like what it undoubtedly was, some kind of animatronic construction, lacking any sense of reality. It's far more effective when he frighteningly bellows in the mountains than when we actually see him. No amount of fast editing can hide the artificiality of those scenes with the buffalo. The poster advertising the film said "You Won't Believe Your Eyes." That's true, but, unfortunately, not in a good way.

The thing about the White Buffalo itself is pretty hokey, the buffalo is really not scary enough to give anybody nightmares. What makes this movie a standout are the supporting roles by Stuart Whitman, Kim Novak, Jack Warden, etc. Also it's great to see Will Sampson as Crazy Horse. However the best thing about this movie is the language. Words like "flummoxed" appear. It's how I imagine people in the 1870's would have talked in the American West. I cannot recall another Western where language has been put to better use.