On a trek through the Western wilderness, Richard Harris is mauled by a bear and left behind for dead by his colleagues, led by John Huston in a funny hat. Harris manages to survive, fix himself up as best he can, and limp along until he catches up with the others. He's been planning revenge but somehow, mainly through memories of his happy wife and child, he appears to have recovered the gentler side of his nature and, after collecting his rifle from them, he trudges off towards home.
It's a weird and, in many ways, unpleasant movie. The trail is through the wintry mountains of the mid-19th century West and everything is gray, cold, damp, and rotting. Harris suffers like blazes, squeezing laudable pus out of his infected thigh, killing mountain lions and dressing himself in their skins to keep from freezing, fighting wolves for the offal of dead buffalo, and enduring suffering in every form except restless legs syndrome.
There are a couple of touching scenes. In one, Harris hides behind a log while an Arikara woman give birth. She does so in the traditional squatting position. (The anthropologist Margaret Mead also insisted on using it.) And this scene and some of the others get some details right. The Arikara use a travois, for instance, and the woman gives birth alone in the woods without help.
But mostly it's pretty brutal. There is virtually no musical score except for some lovey-dovey violin music during Harris's flashbacks to home. It sounded powerfully familiar and I believe parts of the score entered the public domain or were simply ripped off for use in some of the theatrically released skin flicks that were popular in the 70s.
Harris's performance is good enough, though he rarely gets to use that wispy croak of a voice of his. Mostly he groans and grimaces. His wife is Prunella Ransome, whose appearance is an improvement on her name. John Huston took some lousy roles. This isn't one of his better ones, but as an actor he can do little wrong. He invariably comes across as the kind of guy you'd like to get to know better.
It's a weird and, in many ways, unpleasant movie. The trail is through the wintry mountains of the mid-19th century West and everything is gray, cold, damp, and rotting. Harris suffers like blazes, squeezing laudable pus out of his infected thigh, killing mountain lions and dressing himself in their skins to keep from freezing, fighting wolves for the offal of dead buffalo, and enduring suffering in every form except restless legs syndrome.
There are a couple of touching scenes. In one, Harris hides behind a log while an Arikara woman give birth. She does so in the traditional squatting position. (The anthropologist Margaret Mead also insisted on using it.) And this scene and some of the others get some details right. The Arikara use a travois, for instance, and the woman gives birth alone in the woods without help.
But mostly it's pretty brutal. There is virtually no musical score except for some lovey-dovey violin music during Harris's flashbacks to home. It sounded powerfully familiar and I believe parts of the score entered the public domain or were simply ripped off for use in some of the theatrically released skin flicks that were popular in the 70s.
Harris's performance is good enough, though he rarely gets to use that wispy croak of a voice of his. Mostly he groans and grimaces. His wife is Prunella Ransome, whose appearance is an improvement on her name. John Huston took some lousy roles. This isn't one of his better ones, but as an actor he can do little wrong. He invariably comes across as the kind of guy you'd like to get to know better.