Caçada Brutal

This has to be one of the best movies we have seen and we highly recommend it for it's exposure of the injustices of bigotry. Billy Wirth is an incomparable actor and truly awesome as Corby/White Wolf. However, felt the story would have been enhanced if his character had more scenes. This is a movie that can be watched over and over without tiring.

It's the 1880's. Sidney Poitier plays a bounty hunter named Gypsy Smith, half of African American, half of Cherokee descent. He helps African American settlers to find a new home in the town of their own- Freedom in the Oklahoma territory. The local KKK tries to prevent their plan with their mindless cross burnings and killings. Meanwhile Rachel Maxwell is madly in love with the Cheyenne boy, White Wolf, who was brought to live with the family by Gypsy. Children of the Dust (1995) is a two-part western miniseries directed by David Greene. It shows us what racism looked like in the old west in a touching way. What the Ku Klux Klan does here is really heartbreaking and causes anger in the viewer. Sidney Poitier, now 92, gives a very strong performance as the aging gunslinger. There's certain sweetness between the scenes of Gypsy and the schoolteacher Drusilla, wonderfully played by Regina Taylor. Joanna Going is superb as Rachel and Billy Wirth is terrific as Corby/White Wolf. There is a great deal of eroticism and romance in many scenes between them. Michael Moriarty is fantastic as John Maxwell and so is Farrah Fawcett as his wife Nora. Hart Bochner is scary good as the villain Shelby Hornbeck. There are also talents like Shirley Knight, James Caviezel and Robert Guillaume in the movie. I recommend you take a look at this miniseries when you get a chance. At least I was moved by it.

"Children of the Dust" is a most unusual western movie that was made for TV. Unlike most westerns, this one talks a lot about bigotry and violence against Native Americans and blacks by the local Klansmen. It's worth seeing, especially since it stars Sidney Poitier and he was an incredible actor.

There were things I liked and disliked about this film. I appreciate the look at 18th century racism and found a couple of the plots very compelling...such as the emasculation of the sheriff and his revenge against the scum that hurt him. But, at the same time, I thought occasionally the film seemed a bit like a bad romance novel...which in some ways deflected from the stories. Now I am not saying the romance between the white lady and the native man was bad or unnecessary...but it did seem like the emphasis on their passion was distracting. As a result, the portions about the mistreatment of blacks on the prairie seemed stronger and more to the point.

By the way, I am not trying in any way to gloss over the mistreatment of black people in the west...though in many ways, the actual life was far better for a black American than those who remained in the South. There were more opportunities, less racism AND many of the US Cavalry soldiers were black...though you seldom see this in most films about the period.

I can imagine why he'd want to die, after starring in this rubbish. The man is incredible, but even Sidney Poitier couldn't save this tiresome morality play about racism in the old West. He and Joanna Going are both fantastic in this film: too bad the screenplay, co-stars, directing, and score couldn't match those two.

But the DVD I bought from Amazon had about an hour cut out. One reviewer said it was about twenty minutes or more I believe but it was at least an hour. I knew the series had been chopped up but since I love it so much, I decided to get it anyway. I don't know why it could not have been left whole.