The Scalphunters
Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.
- Director: Sydney Pollack
- Genre:Comedy / Western
- Runtime:99 minutes
Cast
Burt Lancaster : Joe Bass
Shelley Winters : Kate
Telly Savalas : Jim Howie
Ossie Davis : Joseph Lee
Dabney Coleman : Jed
Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster), an American fur trapper, is making his way back home with a full cargo of hides when he encounters a group of Kiowa Indians led by Two Crows (Armando Silvestre), who insist on taking his furs. As “payment” they offer him a slave, Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis), who they had previously taken from a group of Comanches. Reluctantly, realising he cannot fight them, Bass agrees to the trade.
Bass is slightly bemused by his new companion, who is a well-educated and refined house slave, unused to the ways of the West. Bass orders him to help him recover the furs from the Kiowa. Lee only agrees to help if Bass agrees to take him to Mexico where slavery is outlawed. Bass is not amused, but the two strike up a friendly relatonship, with Bass teaching Lee how to catch food in the West.
As Lee and Bass come upon the Kiowa, they watch them being ambushed by a group of scalphunters, White Americans and Mexicans who were offered a bounty by the government for each Native scalp they brought in. These scalphunters, led by Jim Howie (Telly Savalas), kill the Kiowa and also steal the furs which Bass had hoped to recover. He and Lee are forced to track the party, hoping to steal back the furs.
Unfortunately, while spying on them, Lee tips over a cliff and is captured by the scalphunters who decide they can sell him for $1500 in Galveston, Texas. As they travel southwards, Jim Howie’s girlfriend, Kate (Shelley Winters), reveals to Lee that they are heading for Mexico. He begins to win her favor, by doing her hair and telling her fortune, hoping she will persuade Howes to take him with them across the border, rather than sell him. Read more
