Le bison blanc

In september 1874, Wild Bill Hickcok (Charles Bronson) returns to the old West under the alias James Otis. He is haunted by the image of a buffalo that symbolizes his fear of death. He awakens every time he tries to sleep from the same nightmare. He knows he must face his nightmare, or go insane.

Oldtimer (and Indian hater) Charlie Zane (Jack Warden), also known as "Oneye" - the great white warrior of Sand Creek - himself an famous Indian hunter in his younger days, go with Wild Bill Hickok to hunt down the White Buffalo.

The old Indian warrior, Chief Crazy Horse (Will Sampson), is looking for the White Buffalo for different reasons. For him, the hunt is sacred, and if he doesn't succeed, he cannot live with himself. His dead little daughter (killed by the White Buffalo) will be "forever tortured in the other world," until he has avenged his child's death. This he must do in the old way.

The realistic locations makes the film chilling indeed. It was filmed on scenic locations in Canon City, Colorado, with interiors at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot. The scenes showing mountains of bleached white buffalo bones are harrowing, as are the cruelty by both whites and Indians.

Great supporting roles by Slim Pickens as a vocal stage driver, Stuart Whitman as a slimy gambler, Cara Williams as the gambler's loumouthed girlfriend, John Carradine as a undertaker, the monstrously big Clint Walker as the murderous trapper "Whistling Jack Kileen," Bert Williams as a barkeeper who helps Wild Bill Hickcok from being killed and finally, Kim Novak made an outstanding return to the screen as Wild Bill Hickcok's old love, and one-time hooker Poker Jenny, now turned respectable.

This is a strange, mythical and murky film. Forget the bad special buffalo effects, and the bad monster. The screenplay in this movie is the thing. The language in this movie is very realistic. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the way the tough, hard people up in the Black Hills really talked back in the 1870s.

I'm proud to call this my favorite western of the 1970s. Not because it was the best, but simply because of it's dark, mythical tone. I've had this on video for a very long time, and have seen it numerous times.

When you see a film over and over again, you notice all the little details, missed by the ones who saw it only once.

In the 1970s, only Sam Peckinpah's westerns were as, or more, interesting. Not to forget Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone. A matter of taste, of course.

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.

In fact, "The White Buffalo" may on the surface appear to be just another Dino De Laurentiis production of the time like "King Kong" or "Orca", but it's rather intriguing and very moody. It's really an offbeat character study in which the character in question, none other than Wild Bill Hickock (Charles Bronson) has to face an internal demon of his by also doing battle with a real one, supposedly the last of the great white buffaloes that have mostly been wiped out.

On his way to meet his destiny, Wild Bill - now travelling under the alias James Otis - meets a variety of colourful characters, including his old friend Charlie Zane (a hearty Jack Warden) and Poker Jenny (Kim Novak, looking as beautiful as ever). Some of his encounters get intense, with the requisite amount of gunfire and bloodshed, but things really pick up once Bill and Charlie make the acquaintance of the Indian named Crazy Horse (Will Sampson), who is on his own quest to slay the beast.

The special effects may draw criticisms from some viewers, but this viewer never had any problem with them, and certainly appreciated seeing old style animatronics. The wintry atmosphere of "The White Buffalo" is incredible, accompanied by genuinely spooky music by John Barry, and the film has a wonderful spiritual quality not to be found in other collaborations between Bronson and director J. Lee Thompson. It's an unconventional choice of material for them, and today it rates as an under-rated entry on their resumes.

Much of the cast are relegated to cameo roles, but make the most out of their brief screen time: Clint Walker, Stuart Whitman, Slim Pickens, John Carradine, Cara Williams, Douglas Fowley, Ed Lauter, and Martin Kove, among others.

With this assemblage of talent and a decent script (by Richard Sale, based on his novel), this makes for fairly compelling viewing.

Seven out of 10.

To understand the failure of WHITE BUFFALO, one has to explain what moviegoers and critics were expecting when the film was released back in 1977.

WHITE BUFFALO was released in the late 1970s, in between KING KONG and ORCA, which were all produced by Dino de Laurentiis. WHITE BUFFALO was seen then as part of this unofficial "Big Animal on the Rampage" trilogy de Laurentiis produced. This is unfortunate because amongst the three movies, WB is the best and, clearly, the most misunderstood movie of the bunch, and one of the most misunderstood movies ever made. Timing is everything and in WHITE BUFFALO's case, everything went against it.

After the spat of spaghetti westerns made during the 1960s and early 1970s, audiences grew tired of them. They wanted something else. By the early 1970s to mid 70s, the number of westerns was dwindling fast and western stars like Charles Bronson needed to make a transition away from the tired genre. In 1974, Bronson starred in DEATH WISH, which became a huge hit all over the world. Bronson was suddenly seen as a contemporary action hero (Clint Eastwood also made the same transition from western star to action hero with the Dirty Harry series around the same time).

By the time WHITE BUFFALO was released, Charles Bronson had made a couple of modern-day action movies and his new audience (that made DEATH WISH such a smash) expected to see the Charles Bronson they knew and liked in contemporary action roles and were disappointed with what WHITE BUFFALO had to offer in terms of action, violence and sex.

But then the people who still remembered Charles Bronson as a western movie star were also disappointed with WHITE BUFFALO because the role Charles Bronson played, the legendary Wild Bill Hickok, was so different from the type of roles he did in his previous westerns that they didn't warm up to this strange shoot 'em up.

And then there are the horror/sci-fi fans, who went to see KING KONG or JAWS, and expected to see another type of "Big Animal on the Rampage" film, and were clearly disappointed with WB because it is NOT a JAWS-like movie (even if there are some scary JAWS-like moments in WB). This is due mainly to the terrible advertising from the studio, which had NO idea how to sell this odd western, and decided to sell WB as a "Big Animal on the Rampage" film because of the theme present in the title and story.

So, when one looks at all of this in hindsight, one can clearly see that WHITE BUFFALO simply had NO chance of succeeding, with critics or at the B.O., regardless of how good or bad the movie was in itself. There were too many misleading and conflicting factors outside of the film itself for anyone to have a clear and objective view of it. This is why it's always good to look at a movie decades after it was made when all the hype and/or expectations are by now forgotten or gone and one can (hope to) view a movie for what it was, not necessarily for what people, critics or even movie studios and stars expected it to be. So when I watched WHITE BUFFALO recently (I had already seen it back in the 80s and always remembered it), I was pleasantly surprised by it. It is much better than what anyone thinks of it.

I'm the first to say that Dino de Laurentiis is a hack. And that director J. Lee Thompson is not a very good director. And that Charles Bronson is not the best actor in the world. But even with all these seemingly negative elements, WHITE BUFFALO is pretty good. It's obvious that Bronson and Thompson saw an opportunity to create something that was close to their hearts and basically created an "artsy" kind of western, most likely without Dino being aware of this. Yes, there are several problems with WHITE BUFFALO but the good qualities of the movie overshadow the bad ones. And watching the movie today, one can clearly see that the film is supposed to be seen, first and foremost, as a MYTHICAL ALLEGORY (It's no wonder United Artists had no idea how to sell this movie. How do you promote an allegorical film?) The white buffalo; the meeting of Wild Bill Hickok and Crazy Horse, etc. The dream-like atmosphere is what makes WHITE BUFFALO so memorable. The conflicting narratives, between the standard western and the one with allegorical elements, give the latter even more power because as we watch the movie, one sorta forgets that the film has a white buffalo in it and when it finally arrives, the whole thing seems even more unreal. Imagine a western directed by David Lynch.

Aside from the couple of shots where you can clearly see the track on which the mechanical buffalo is mounted on, the buffalo itself is okay. There isn't any scene in WB that last long enough with a clear view of the mechanical animal to have a really good idea how it looks like. The scenery is beautiful and the music by John Barry is excellent. And there is a strange, foreboding claustrophobic mood that permeates the whole film. And Jack Warden gives an excellent performance as Bill's partner. His performance anchors the dream-like film. WHITE BUFFALO is NOT the disaster that everyone claims it to be. And it definitely has a cult following.

...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.