The Scalphunters (1968)

Burt Lancaster is Joe Bass, a trapper riding in with the winter’s bounty of furs.

He’s accosted by Kiowa led by Chief Two Crows, who take his furs and his booze and gives him a kidnapped slave named Joseph Winfield Lee (Ossie Davis) in return.

Bass sets out to get his furs; Joseph Lee tags along. Let the Kiowa get good and drunk, and it shouldn’t be too difficult, Bass figures.

But the Indians are attacked by scalphunters first. Next thing you know, Joseph Lee and the furs are in the hands of the scalphunting band, led by Jim Howie (Telly Savalas).

Getting back those furs while heavily outnumbered won’t be easy, but Joe Bass sets out to do it.

Meanwhile, Joseph Lee is doing his own plotting. His goal: Find a way to Mexico where black men aren’t sold into slavery.

Burt Lancaster as Joe Bass in The Scalphunters (1968)

Ossie Davis as Joseph Winfield Lee in The Scalphunters (1969)

Review:

Along with “Hallelujah Trail,” another misfire of a comedy Western starring Lancaster, though this one does offer a rousing ending, if you make it that far.

The best performances come from Ossie Davis and Shelley Winters.

Davis plays the former slave who’s considerably more educated and clear-headed than either of the men figuring to return him to slavery.

Winters plays Howie’s well-worn whore who just shrugs and says, ‘Oh, well, they’re only men,’ when she falls into the hands of the Kiowa.

Fortunately, Lancaster would return to making much better, grittier Westerns in the early 1970s.

Telly Savalas as Jim Howie in The Scalphunters (1968)

Shelley Winters as Kate in The Scalphunters (1968)

Directed by:
Sydney Pollack

Cast:
Burt Lancaster … Joe Bass
Shelley Winters … Kate
Telly Savalas … Jim Howie
Ossie Davis … Joseph Winfield Lee
Dadney Coleman … Jed
Paul Picerni … Frank
Dan Vadis … Yuma
Armando Silvestre … Two Crows
Nick Cravat … Yancy
Tony Epper … Scalphunter
Chuck Roberson … Scalphunter
John Epper … Scalphunter
Jack Williams … Scalphunter
Agapito Roldan … Scalphunter
Marco Antonio Arzate … Scalphunter
Gregorio Acosta … Scalphunter

Runtime: 102 min.

Music: Elmer Bernstein

Armando Silvestre as Two Crows in The Scalphunters (1968)

Burt Lancaster as Joe Bass determined to get his furs back in The Scalphunters (1968)

Memorable lines:

Joe Bass: “Joseph Lee, you ever study the law?”
Joseph Lee, a former slave: “No sir.”
Bass: “Well, neither did I. But you ain’t got a chance in hell of calling yourself an Indian. You’re an African, slave by employment, black by color.”

Joe Bass: “You ever fight 12 drunk Indians?”
Joseph Lee: “No sir. But I’d like to see it done.”

Kate, sniffing as she exits her wagon: “Howie, how often I gotta tell you? Get that sack of hair (scalps) off my wagon.”
Jim Howie: “Honey, those scalps are worth $25 apiece.”
Kate: “That don’t mean we have to sleep with them, does it?”

Ossie Davis as Joseph Winfield Lee tells a fortune for Kate (Shelley Winters) in The Scalphunters (1968)

Shelley Winters as Kate prepares to defend her honor in The Scalphunters (1968)

Jim Howie to Kate: “Go get yourself some clothes on. I don’t want these men getting any horny notions.”
Kate: “Quit talkin’ like a Baptist preacher. If I had half the boots been stuck under my bed I bet I could outfit the United States cavalry.”

Joe Bass to his horse: “Dammit, jug head. That’s loco weed. You’ll run around like a coyote with his guts hanging’ out.”

Joe Bass to Joseph Lee: “You sure made your way with those people. You got their whiskey. You’re doing their bushwackin’ plans for ’em. Sashaying along with that fancy woman. Throw you in the pigpen, and you come out vice president of the hogs.”

Joseph Lee: “You think mighty well of yourself, don’t you, Joe Bass? You know how long you would last as a colored man? About one minute.”

Joe Bass, as Joseph Lee prepares to ride off with his furs and leave his stranded in the desert: “Get off my horse, you son of a bitch.”
Joseph Lee: “You know something, Joe Bass. You are the most stubborn, mule-headed, love yourself man that ever walked God’s creation. And someday, somebody just naturally ought to bust some sense into your hard-boned head.”