The screenplay is basically a contest between the traditional exploitation of nature's bounty to near exhaustion, and the new conservation movement to conserve natural resources so that they may be with us in the future. Cottonmouth(Burl Ives) and his crew of waterbird poachers represent the epitome of exterminate and move on practice, that reached its peak in the late 19th century, with the advent of superior repeater weapons, and population pressure. Walt Murdock(Christopher Plummer)(also called 'bird boy') represents the wave of the future, as a student of nature, and game warden with the dangerous job of enforcing recent no kill laws.
Ives' character very much reminds me of his character in "The Big Country", also released in 1958. There too, he is the patriarch of a motley crew of men, again ruling with an iron fist. His character also much reminds me of Eddie Robinson's Wolf Larsen, in "The Sea Wolf", who preferred to go down with his ship rather than have to start over as a nobody. Cottonmouth 'knew' he wouldn't survive that snake bite, thus ordered Murdock to leave him there in his beloved glades rather than try heroics to save him.
But, Murdock and Cottonmouth are, in some ways, more alike than different. They both relish wild places, far from the prying eyes of conventional civilization. Murdock acknowledges this connection in his participation in the drinking spree and rough games of the poachers.
Incidentally, the dramatized death by tying a Seminole to a Manchineel tree is a bit overplayed. There is indeed such a tree in the glades that contains many types of poisons, whose sap mostly causes bad skin and eye ulcers, which may become septic. The tempting fruit is quite toxic when eaten.
Ives' character very much reminds me of his character in "The Big Country", also released in 1958. There too, he is the patriarch of a motley crew of men, again ruling with an iron fist. His character also much reminds me of Eddie Robinson's Wolf Larsen, in "The Sea Wolf", who preferred to go down with his ship rather than have to start over as a nobody. Cottonmouth 'knew' he wouldn't survive that snake bite, thus ordered Murdock to leave him there in his beloved glades rather than try heroics to save him.
But, Murdock and Cottonmouth are, in some ways, more alike than different. They both relish wild places, far from the prying eyes of conventional civilization. Murdock acknowledges this connection in his participation in the drinking spree and rough games of the poachers.
Incidentally, the dramatized death by tying a Seminole to a Manchineel tree is a bit overplayed. There is indeed such a tree in the glades that contains many types of poisons, whose sap mostly causes bad skin and eye ulcers, which may become septic. The tempting fruit is quite toxic when eaten.