The Trackers

The first thing that I thought about when I watched this tV movie from the early seventies is that it reminded me Bob Aldrich's masterpiece, made one year later, starring Burt the Great. Of course, that would be a mistake to expect a better movie from this one, starring Ernie Borgnine and Sam davis Jr, but it's worthwhile though, with good cast and performance. And that's a posse movie, a genre within the western one, a very specific scheme, proper to western mainly, not crime movie. As you also have the revenge topic, alone sheriff against corrupted town scheme too, or blue coats against Indians, or caravan west and of course bad white men selling alcohol or guns to good Indians. Back to this film, you have here a good character depiction, especially between Borgnine and Davis. Not that much racism oriented, only a little, it was the period for this.

Aaron Spelling made a bunch of made for television films and they mostly fell into categories like romance, suspense and horror. So imagine my surprise when I found that he also produced a western-- and it stars an actor you wouldn't suspect would be in a western, Sammy Davis Jr.!

When the film begins, Sam and Dora Paxton (Ernest Borgnine and Julie Adams) arrive at their ranch to find their son dying and daughter abducted. When Sam contacts a famous lawman and tracker, instead of this old friend arriving to help he sends his deputy...Ezekiel Smith (Davis). What follows are the sort of racial tension you have seen in films of the era. Sam is, like most folks of his day, a racist and slowly he and Ezekiel work through this as they set out on their cross-country adventure.

This is a film that offers few real surprises and ends about where you'd expect. This doesn't mean it's a bad film. It's well intentioned and entertaining but not a whole lot more.

Aaron Spelling lends his gravitas to the ongoing love affair that the American TV audience has with their ridiculous motion of the historical wild west.

This rose-tinted fairytale is no different, except there's some fine talent in front of the camera.

Also, despite being half a century old, this movie has a level headed and mature approach to the issues of bigotry and racism.

But the story is really an excuse to explore the development of trust and friendship between two cowboys on the trail of some Indians heading to Mexico. Both Earnest Borgnine and Sammy Davis Jr. Both rise above the silly story to make this worth watching.

As soon as I saw that Ernest Borgnine was in this I thought this might actually be a pretty good Western

When I saw that Sammy Davis Junior was going to be in it I figured this might even be better than what I was expecting

But as soon as Davis Junior comes riding in with an outfit that somehow belong in a more modern western it just all of a sudden did not fit too well

Most definitely a tension western between two characters on the issue of race but pretty good dramatic acting especially from Borgnine.

This made for TV western is a magnificent portrayal of a change of heart In a man when he has to trust someone he doesn't like and has the eyes of his understanding opened. The film does very well at this but of course made for TV movies usually leave a lot to be desired so you'll need to close your critical eyes if you are going to enjoy his one. The performances by Sammy Davis Jr and Earnest Borgnine are of high quality and the rest of the cast did very well. It appears there is an tendency in this movie to overplay the racism card and the writers could have elevated their game by being more subtle about it but they do get their point across. The music is good and not distracting. The cinematography is done well but what is hard to ignore is the poor screen play. I guess that is what you get on low budget films that are time limited. This is well worth watching for the performances of the stars and highly recommended for the whole family.

Acting: 8 Directing: 6 Screen Play: 4 Cinematography: 7 Writing: 6 Music: 7 Overall: 6.3 stars.