[Inspector Abberline]

The White Buffalo (1977)


Not sure if they (~the hipsters) have a turn of phrase for those western and period movies set in the snowier regions of the western genre,obviously we have had renewed interest due to the likes of Hateful Eight,and past movies like The Great Silence, Death Hunt and Jeremiah Johnson. J. Lee Thompson (sort of go to guy when Micheal Winner was having a dinner party or selling car insurance) directs Charles Bronson (the go to guy for J. Lee Thompson when he was not making Death Wish movies) as Wild Bill Hickok ,a man haunted by the apparition of a great white bunny,sorry buffalo.Also on the trail of the big white fluffy one is Will Sampson as Crazy Horse,a man on a mission after his village was wiped out by big buff.They did not take any chances cast wise,so they managed to round up every character actor alive including Jack Warden looking unrecognisable as an old timer,Slim Pickens doing his impression of Pickens,Kim Novak as Poker Jenny Schermerhorn .Clint Walker as Whistling Jack Kileen,Stuart Whitman and John Carradine as the local undertaker.oh not forgetting Ed Lauter bad guy for hire. The great Carlo Rambaldi is responsible for white buffalo effects,and the creature does look mean and ornery,as it charges around the sound stages,as most of the footage with the buffalo seems to be filmed in a studio rather than on location. Released in 1977,it seems a fairly odd time to release a western,even one with a monster buffalo in it,and its initial failure at the box office was probably largely due to the fact that most people were looking skyward with Star Wars rather than westward .J. Lee Thompson is if nothing else a consistently good director,never bad,but workman like,White Buffalo does take a while to get to the final face off,but its an interesting take on western genre.