Joe Don Baker is Wishbone Cutter, a Confederate captain ordered to make a suicide charge with his cavalry unit near the end of the Civil War.
Virgil Cane, one of his subordinates, is mortally wounded. With his dying breath, he tells Cutter of a bag of shiny stones he discovered years earlier and hid in the mountains of Northern Arkansas.
He doesn’t know if they’re valuable. But he leaves them to Cutter just the same.
The South loses the war. Cutter’s home is commandeered by the Union Army. His wife Rosalie has taken up with a Northern officer.
With nothing left, Cutter sets off in search of the stones, accompanied by Half Moon O’Brian, his scout during the war, and Amos “Teach” Richmond, a geologist who will be able to identify Cane’s find.
Along the way, they pick up an unexpected fourth party, pretty Drusilla Wilcox (Sondra Locke), the only survivor of an Indian attack.
And they quickly learn this journey will be more dangerous than expected. The Indians lurking about are never seen, but deadly accurate with their black arrows.
Soon, Half Moon starts talking about spirits, demons and a cursed mountain from which no man returns.
Joe Don Baker as Wishbone Cutter in Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Sondra Locke as Drusilla Wilcox in Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Review:
The only film directed by Earl F. Smith, who also wrote the script and served as producer, this is a low-budget horror Western.
Unfortunately, it’s a rather sluggish affair, not helped by the widely circulated poor-quality release that’s about 21 minutes shorter than its listed runtime on IMDb.
Watch the movie, and it’s obvious from the quick cuts from one scene to the next that it’s been chopped up. Though from what remains, it’s hard to imagine an extra 20 minutes helping all that much.
At the time, Slim Pickens was the big name in the cast, but his character is the one who found the stones and dies after the opening Civil War battle, filled out with lots of stock footage.
Today, the film is a curiosity largely because of the presence of Sondra Locke, who started a long-term relationship with Clint Eastwood during the filming of “The Outlaw Josey Wales.” The marks one of the rare non-Clint projects in which she was involved during that period.
The film’s pluses: There’s a pretty suspenseful scene in which a cliff crumbles, leaving Locke’s character Drusilla in need of a dangerous rescue. And there’s a rather clever ending, if you care by that point.
Ted Neeley as Amos ‘Teach’ Richmond in Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Joy N. Houck Jr. as Half Moon O’Brian in Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Directed by:
Earl F. Smith
Cast:
Joe Don Baker … Wishbone Cutter
Sondra Locke … Drusilla Wilcox
Ted Neeley … Amos Richmond, Teach
Joy N. Houck Jr. … Half Moon O’Brian
Dennis Fimple … Posey
John Davis Chandler … Rafe
Gray Wyatt … Dancer
Linda Dano … Rosalie Cutter
Slim Pickens … Virgil Cane
Bud Davis … Maj. Lee Blackburn
Runtime: 114 min.
aka:
The Curse of Demon Mountain
Demon Mountain
The Ballad of Virgil Cane
Thunder Mountain
Wishbone Cutter
Slim Pickens as Virgil Cane in The Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Linda Dano as Rosalie Cutter in Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Memorable lines:
Confederate commander: “You have two choices: You can either follow order, or face a firing squad.”
Wishbone Cutter, having objected to a suicide charge: “What I like about the army: They give you choices.”
Half Moon O’Brian: “Captain, may I suggest we hurry. Because I smell the bad breath of bluecoats on our behinds.”
Amos “Teach” Richmond: “You still believe we’re being followed.”
Capt. Cutter: “Well, Moon does. And I’ve learned to expect company when his nose itches.”
Drusilla: “You’ve made one snide remark after another about me. I’m sick of it. I didn’t choose to be in your company any more than you chose to be in mine. But I’ve done my best to put up with you. Why don’t you loan me a horse and I’ll ride out of here right now? If you won’t do that, the least you can do is ignore my presence.”
Wishbone Cutter: “Consider yourself ignored.”
John Davis Chander as Rafe, one of the bushwackers in Shadow of Chikara (1977)
Dennis Fimple as Posey, one of the bushwackers in Shadow of Chikara (1977)
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