Jonathan of the Bears (1994)

A young boy headed to a new home with his parents watches them murdered by bandits instead.

But he escapes, befriends a bear cub and is later adopted by Chief Tawanka (Floyd Westerman) of a nearby Indian tribe.

Haunted by memories of his childhood, Jonathan (Franco Nero) heads out on the vengeance trail once he is grown.

But while Jonathan finds and kills one of the men he’s seeking, he realizes he’s becoming consumed by the violence he so despises.

So he returns to his Indian home and uses his skills to help defend the tribe’s land from encroaching whites.

At first, that means the hunters and scoundrels from the nearby town, which is under the thumb of a man named Maddock (David Hess).

Then a more dangerous threat arrives in the form of Fred Goodwin (John Saxon).

He’s seeking the black gold –- oil –- on the tribe’s land and has a quartet of skilled mercenaries to do his bidding.

Review:

More than a decade after “Keoma,” director Enzo Castellari and star Franco Nero reunite for another impressive Western, with a touch of mysticism and a haunting score.

While not an official sequel to the earlier film, it’s easy to understand the comparisons. In both films, the hero has spent part of his childhood raised by Indians. In both films, he runs up against powerful whites with a thirst for violence and superior numbers.

And while the flashback sequences of young Jonathan frolicking with bears will strike some as hokey, it’s impossible not to sympathize with Nero’s character and those for whom he’s fighting.

The film also benefits from two hateful villains in David Hess and John Saxon, the latter of whom is merely more sophisticated in dispensing violence, and from a well-choreographed attack on the Indian village.

Knifewing Seguar plays Chatow, Jonathan’s Indian brother. Melody Robertson is Shaya, the mute Indian girl who becomes his lover.

Directed by:
Enzo G. Castellari

Cast:
Franco Nero … Jonathan
John Saxon … Fred Goodwin
Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman … Chief Tawanka
David Hess … Maddock
Rodrigo Obregon … Kaspar
Clive Riche … Musician
Ennio Girolami … Goodwin’s mercenary
Bobby Rhodes …. Williamson
Marie Louise Sinclair … Brothel Madam
Boris Khmelnitskiy … Religious mercenary
Viktor Gajnov … Tall Mercenary
Knifewing Seguar … Chatow
Melody Robertson … Shaya
Igor Alimov … Jonathan as a boy
Layla … The bear

Runtime: 115 min.

aka:
Jonathan degli orsi

Songs:
“Jonathan of the Bears”
“Black Gold”
“Spirits in the Wind”

Memorable lines:

Maddock, of the Indians: “They aren’t human. They’re animals. The men get drunk; the women have babies. The more of them you kill, the more they multiply.”

Jonathan: “The white man advances like locust, consuming everything in his path, leaving the land wasted, spoiled of its dignity.”

Chief Tawanka: “No one can steal paradise. For a man — even the most greedy of men — can only take what is within his reach. And paradise, my son, is a place no man can steal.”

Maddock: “It’s a cesspool, but I smell lots of money.”

The minstrel: “The streets of the town are full of mud. Pretty soon, they’ll flow with blood.”

Jonathan on his vengeance trail, reminding one of the killers about the day his parents died: “You forgot about the child. The child didn’t forget about you.”

Goodwin to Maddock: “You’re the only man I know who hit bottom and then sank lower.”

Goodwin to the residents: “I promise you a paradise where money flows with wine and women of all colors and shapes.”

Whorehouse madam to Goodwin: “How have you been, you son of a bitch?”
Goodwin: “Busy.”

Goodwin: “Aren’t you afraid to die?”
Jonathan: “Dying is not a problem. The man without freedom is dead anyway.”

Jonathan: “Shaya, I wish I could take you to a place where everything makes sense. But there is no such place in our world. I’ve looked everywhere. I know.”

Oil engineer: “We’re all sons of the same god.”
Black henchman Williamson: “And what color is he?”

Trivia:

Born Nov. 23, 1941, Nero was 53 when this film was released in his native Italy. He returned to Westerns with a cameo role in 2012’s “Django Unchained” and had racked up an additional 20 film credits by 2019 with several more projects in pre-production.

Nero co-wrote and co-produced the movie, which was filmed in Russia. The Western town was built on the site of a former military base near Moscow. While conceived before “Dances With Wolves” (1990), Nero said he was unable to secure financing for the project until the Kevin Costner film became a box office hit.

The film is dedicated to Sergio Corbucci and Clair Huffaker, a script writer for several Westerns and a man Franco Nero describes as “one of my best friends in America.” Both died in 1990.

In this interview, Nero says “Jonathan of the Bears” was cut by 23 minutes upon its release in America. “All of the dialogues, all of the politics, a lot of race themes, all gone. There was just nothing! I was so upset.”