Unbalanced and obsessive buffalo hunter, Robert Taylor, teams up with reluctant, but famous hunter Stewart Granger to make a financial killing on buffalo skins as their numbers are decreasing. They are joined by seasoned skinner Lloyd Nolan and young Indian Russ Tamblyn. When their horses are stolen, Taylor hunts and kills the Indians and abducts a young woman and her young son - Granger isn't happy and the divide between them slowly grows.
Intelligent, well written 'western' assisted immeasurably by a superb and atypical turn by Taylor as a really unpleasant piece of work. Granger is also good in a less showy role, tired of the west and the killing - there's a wonderful section where he goes to town and loses it just to get it out of his system. Nolan is fun in the Walter Brennan role, whilst Debra Paget is fine, but with little to do. A brutal film, featuring many uncomfortable scenes of buffalo being shot for real - not for the film - and a number of rather sadistic, crazed scenes from the excellent Taylor, all leading to a neat, rather satisfying, but different climax.
Clearly there are strong messages here around the destruction of the buffalo herds and the treatment of Indians in the US, which may be, in part at least, for its poor box office performance.
Intelligent, well written 'western' assisted immeasurably by a superb and atypical turn by Taylor as a really unpleasant piece of work. Granger is also good in a less showy role, tired of the west and the killing - there's a wonderful section where he goes to town and loses it just to get it out of his system. Nolan is fun in the Walter Brennan role, whilst Debra Paget is fine, but with little to do. A brutal film, featuring many uncomfortable scenes of buffalo being shot for real - not for the film - and a number of rather sadistic, crazed scenes from the excellent Taylor, all leading to a neat, rather satisfying, but different climax.
Clearly there are strong messages here around the destruction of the buffalo herds and the treatment of Indians in the US, which may be, in part at least, for its poor box office performance.