Customer Rating: 
Summary: "jaws" on the western plains
Comment: this is another of charles bronson's 70's westerns that tried to do something different,and it works if you let it. blasted by everyone when it came out it really is a good take on "jaws" and "moby dick" in the west. bronson is wild bill hickock,slowly being eatten away by the clap,and having visions of the white buffalo of the title and it's coming for him so he starts looking for it. will sampson is crazy horse who must kill the beast to help his daughter(killed by the anamial)to get to heaven. this has some great scenery and some fine action scenes,so if you like bronson or westerns that have a little food for thought check this one out.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Western Noire
Comment: I first saw this film in my teens, and it's stayed in my head ever since. I've only been able to find it on DVD with Korean menus, but I thank goodness for the widescreen version!
To the classical western lover, this movie offers the dialogue and characters, but will disappoint with its lack of evil cattle barons, bank robbing villains, etc. but to the avid movie watcher, this is a real treat. It's dark, real dark. Alot of it is studio work, but even the exterior shooting is dim and really, though possibly inadvertently, the film is film-noire.
Bronson's dead-pan delivery fits right in here (I'd have hated to see him in a romantic comedy!) Will Sampson has never disappointed me, even in such disastrous vehicles as Poltergeist III, but in his role as Crazy Horse (Worm) he is simply perfect (Hoka hai!) All of the supporting casting was perfect as well.
The "Moby Dick" parallel is accurate....except we have the added complexity of two Ahab's, who should be enemies, but find themselves united. Probably my favorite western!
Customer Rating:
Summary: like the song by Ted Nugent, this movie rocks!,
Comment: I like this movie a lot; I wish I had seen it when I was younger, I'm sure it would have an even firmer place in my heart. As it is, I still admire this odd, surreal western monster movie. It has more in common with Moby Dick than Jaws, with its various characters pushed onward by fate, following nightmares and omens to their respective destinies, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. It also features some of the greatest western slang I have ever had the pleasure of hearing;the script by Richard Sale is a marvel of cowpoke linguistics. Admittedly, Charles Bronson is best when he is silent and here he is as verbose as you will ever hear him but he seems to really shine through in an oddly human and likable way when he is acting opposite Will Sampson. Jack Warden seems to take extra special delight in handling his dialogue with a curmudgeonly precision and it is delicious.I grew up in a rural Pacific Northwest town--I know my redneck and cowboy talk and their attendant mannerisms--so trust me when I say that the dialogue alone in this film makes it worth viewing; this is as close to cowboy poetry as you'll ever hear. But you also get this giant monster buffalo that never manages to look like anything other than a big mechanical puppet--but that doesn't detract from the pleasure of this film one bit! I would venture to praise some of the quick-cutting and crazy dolly shots used in the sequences with the animatronic beast, which comes across marvelously well in conjunction with the bellowing roar it is given by the sound effects department and John Barry's ominous score.I have seen this film several times and the buffalo always surprises me by its effectiveness; it has its place in my fond memories alongside the mutated bear in John Frankenheimer's unjustly lambasted PROPHECY.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Moby Dick of the West!
Comment: I liked this movie even though it is bad in some ways. Charles Bronson is excellent as James Otis A.K.A. Wild Bill Hickok. Seems Hickok has caught a dose of the clap (factually correct) and is possibly beginning to go mad. Seems he keeps having a nightmare about a giant white buffalo attacking him. It seems so real that he wakes up blasting his two pistols at the phantom and scaring the hell out of the people around him. There is a parallel story of Crazy Horse on a quest of revenge for the death of his small baby by a very real white buff. There is the usual cast of western charactes, the whore with the heart of gold, the cavalry, the mountain men, saloon owner and vermin and native americans. This movie is different and kind of an Ahab/Mobey Dick quest for revenge. The buffalo looks like crap but I guess compared to what they can do today it can be understandable. Bronson is great so is Jack Warden. Clint Walker makes a cameo and so does Kim Novak. And Will Sampson is just fantastic as "Worm" AKA Crazy Horse. Also the young guy that played Bernard Posner in Billy Jack is their as a Clint Walker lackey.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A True Western Filmed in the Era of the Anti-Hero
Comment: It was 1977. Two years after the Vietnam War ended. American society was in an upheaval. The good guy in the white suit and the 10 gallon hat wasn't so good anymore. Cynicism was the spirit of the day.
Along comes Dino DeLaurentis, Charlie Bronson as Wild Bill Hickok and Will Sampson as Crazy Horse. A Bill Hickok in the last two years of his life (1874) fighting demons, venereal disease, and the White Buffalo. A Crazy Horse who has gone crazy after the stampede (by the White Buffalo) death of his child, and is now called "Worm" by his fellow Sioux.
Add to this a stellar cast of misfits, mountain men, gamblers, soldiers, braves, and soiled angels chosen out of Hollywood's finest: Kim Novak as a beautiful and earthy Poker Mary, (not a real character - Calamity Jane might have been more appropo, though in real life she was one ugly mutha), Jack Warden plays Wild Bill's sidekick, an crusty mountain man, who wants to drill a hole in Crazy Horse, who somehow becomes a friend of Hickok - though they know each other by different names. Clint Walker, Stuart Whitman, Ed Lauter as an angry Tom Custer determined to get even with Hickok for the shooting deaths of two 7th Cavalry boys who were dumb enough to pick a fight with Hickok some years before in Hays City*, even a very young Martin Kove.
If DeLaurentis' intention was, in the spirit of the times, to make Hickok a very unflattering figure, he failed miserably. Bronson makes Hickok, especially at a time he was losing his eyesight and his confidence, a very human, and even heroic, if not larger-than-life. Warden, Novak (her role was MUCH too short)tries to bed down her former lover, Hickok, only to be told that he's got the clap (which the real "Wild Bill" had); Sampson, and Lauter are superb; but this reviewer doesn't care too much for the portrayal of good guy Clint Walker as an unscrupulous outlaw type, or the disshelved gambler Stuart Whitman, who gets himself killed early on.
In the end, both Hickok and Crazy Horse do find the White Buffalo in a dramatic, snowy, thunderous scene (superb musical score by John Barry)- their eventual fates casting an ominous shadow as the film ends.
"White Buffalo" was a TRUE Western epic - even if DeLaurentis didn't intend it to be. Something to keep in mind in the times of the Great Gay Joke called a Western - "Brokeback Mountain" - a Western it is not; a joke it most certainly is, except to the Hollyweirdos.
*(Re: the animosity between Hickok and Tom Custer, who later died alongside his brother at the Little Big Horn. This was a true story. While George Armstrong Custer remained a good friend of Hickok's till the end of their lives - Hickok being killed only 2 months after the Custers met their end, his brother Tom detested Hickok over the Hays City shootings).
Summary: "jaws" on the western plains
Comment: this is another of charles bronson's 70's westerns that tried to do something different,and it works if you let it. blasted by everyone when it came out it really is a good take on "jaws" and "moby dick" in the west. bronson is wild bill hickock,slowly being eatten away by the clap,and having visions of the white buffalo of the title and it's coming for him so he starts looking for it. will sampson is crazy horse who must kill the beast to help his daughter(killed by the anamial)to get to heaven. this has some great scenery and some fine action scenes,so if you like bronson or westerns that have a little food for thought check this one out.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Western Noire
Comment: I first saw this film in my teens, and it's stayed in my head ever since. I've only been able to find it on DVD with Korean menus, but I thank goodness for the widescreen version!
To the classical western lover, this movie offers the dialogue and characters, but will disappoint with its lack of evil cattle barons, bank robbing villains, etc. but to the avid movie watcher, this is a real treat. It's dark, real dark. Alot of it is studio work, but even the exterior shooting is dim and really, though possibly inadvertently, the film is film-noire.
Bronson's dead-pan delivery fits right in here (I'd have hated to see him in a romantic comedy!) Will Sampson has never disappointed me, even in such disastrous vehicles as Poltergeist III, but in his role as Crazy Horse (Worm) he is simply perfect (Hoka hai!) All of the supporting casting was perfect as well.
The "Moby Dick" parallel is accurate....except we have the added complexity of two Ahab's, who should be enemies, but find themselves united. Probably my favorite western!
Customer Rating:
Summary: like the song by Ted Nugent, this movie rocks!,
Comment: I like this movie a lot; I wish I had seen it when I was younger, I'm sure it would have an even firmer place in my heart. As it is, I still admire this odd, surreal western monster movie. It has more in common with Moby Dick than Jaws, with its various characters pushed onward by fate, following nightmares and omens to their respective destinies, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. It also features some of the greatest western slang I have ever had the pleasure of hearing;the script by Richard Sale is a marvel of cowpoke linguistics. Admittedly, Charles Bronson is best when he is silent and here he is as verbose as you will ever hear him but he seems to really shine through in an oddly human and likable way when he is acting opposite Will Sampson. Jack Warden seems to take extra special delight in handling his dialogue with a curmudgeonly precision and it is delicious.I grew up in a rural Pacific Northwest town--I know my redneck and cowboy talk and their attendant mannerisms--so trust me when I say that the dialogue alone in this film makes it worth viewing; this is as close to cowboy poetry as you'll ever hear. But you also get this giant monster buffalo that never manages to look like anything other than a big mechanical puppet--but that doesn't detract from the pleasure of this film one bit! I would venture to praise some of the quick-cutting and crazy dolly shots used in the sequences with the animatronic beast, which comes across marvelously well in conjunction with the bellowing roar it is given by the sound effects department and John Barry's ominous score.I have seen this film several times and the buffalo always surprises me by its effectiveness; it has its place in my fond memories alongside the mutated bear in John Frankenheimer's unjustly lambasted PROPHECY.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Moby Dick of the West!
Comment: I liked this movie even though it is bad in some ways. Charles Bronson is excellent as James Otis A.K.A. Wild Bill Hickok. Seems Hickok has caught a dose of the clap (factually correct) and is possibly beginning to go mad. Seems he keeps having a nightmare about a giant white buffalo attacking him. It seems so real that he wakes up blasting his two pistols at the phantom and scaring the hell out of the people around him. There is a parallel story of Crazy Horse on a quest of revenge for the death of his small baby by a very real white buff. There is the usual cast of western charactes, the whore with the heart of gold, the cavalry, the mountain men, saloon owner and vermin and native americans. This movie is different and kind of an Ahab/Mobey Dick quest for revenge. The buffalo looks like crap but I guess compared to what they can do today it can be understandable. Bronson is great so is Jack Warden. Clint Walker makes a cameo and so does Kim Novak. And Will Sampson is just fantastic as "Worm" AKA Crazy Horse. Also the young guy that played Bernard Posner in Billy Jack is their as a Clint Walker lackey.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A True Western Filmed in the Era of the Anti-Hero
Comment: It was 1977. Two years after the Vietnam War ended. American society was in an upheaval. The good guy in the white suit and the 10 gallon hat wasn't so good anymore. Cynicism was the spirit of the day.
Along comes Dino DeLaurentis, Charlie Bronson as Wild Bill Hickok and Will Sampson as Crazy Horse. A Bill Hickok in the last two years of his life (1874) fighting demons, venereal disease, and the White Buffalo. A Crazy Horse who has gone crazy after the stampede (by the White Buffalo) death of his child, and is now called "Worm" by his fellow Sioux.
Add to this a stellar cast of misfits, mountain men, gamblers, soldiers, braves, and soiled angels chosen out of Hollywood's finest: Kim Novak as a beautiful and earthy Poker Mary, (not a real character - Calamity Jane might have been more appropo, though in real life she was one ugly mutha), Jack Warden plays Wild Bill's sidekick, an crusty mountain man, who wants to drill a hole in Crazy Horse, who somehow becomes a friend of Hickok - though they know each other by different names. Clint Walker, Stuart Whitman, Ed Lauter as an angry Tom Custer determined to get even with Hickok for the shooting deaths of two 7th Cavalry boys who were dumb enough to pick a fight with Hickok some years before in Hays City*, even a very young Martin Kove.
If DeLaurentis' intention was, in the spirit of the times, to make Hickok a very unflattering figure, he failed miserably. Bronson makes Hickok, especially at a time he was losing his eyesight and his confidence, a very human, and even heroic, if not larger-than-life. Warden, Novak (her role was MUCH too short)tries to bed down her former lover, Hickok, only to be told that he's got the clap (which the real "Wild Bill" had); Sampson, and Lauter are superb; but this reviewer doesn't care too much for the portrayal of good guy Clint Walker as an unscrupulous outlaw type, or the disshelved gambler Stuart Whitman, who gets himself killed early on.
In the end, both Hickok and Crazy Horse do find the White Buffalo in a dramatic, snowy, thunderous scene (superb musical score by John Barry)- their eventual fates casting an ominous shadow as the film ends.
"White Buffalo" was a TRUE Western epic - even if DeLaurentis didn't intend it to be. Something to keep in mind in the times of the Great Gay Joke called a Western - "Brokeback Mountain" - a Western it is not; a joke it most certainly is, except to the Hollyweirdos.
*(Re: the animosity between Hickok and Tom Custer, who later died alongside his brother at the Little Big Horn. This was a true story. While George Armstrong Custer remained a good friend of Hickok's till the end of their lives - Hickok being killed only 2 months after the Custers met their end, his brother Tom detested Hickok over the Hays City shootings).