The Return of a Man Called Horse | |
---|---|
Directed by | Irvin Kershner |
Written by | Jack DeWitt |
Based on | Characters by Dorothy M. Johnson |
Produced by | Terry Morse Jr. |
Starring | Richard Harris Gale Sondergaard Geoffrey Lewis |
Cinematography | Owen Roizman |
Edited by | Michael Kahn |
Music by | Laurence Rosenthal |
Production companies | Estudios Churubusco Azteca Sandy Howard Productions |
Distributed by | United Artists (US) Estudios Churubusco Azteca (Mexico) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 129 minutes |
Countries | United States Mexico |
Language | English |
Budget | $4 million [1] |
The Return of a Man Called Horse is a 1976 Western film directed by Irvin Kershner and written by Jack DeWitt. It is a sequel to the 1970 film A Man Called Horse , in turn based on Dorothy M. Johnson's short story of the same name, with Richard Harris reprises his role as Horse, a British aristocrat who has become a member of a tribe of Lakota Sioux. Other cast members include Gale Sondergaard, Geoffrey Lewis, and William Lucking.
Like its predecessor, the film is a Mexican-American co-production shot primarily on-location in Mexico. Like its predecessor, the film was largely a critical and financial success, but was criticized by some for rehashing earlier plot elements. It was followed by a sequel in 1983, Triumphs of a Man Called Horse .
Trappers with government support force the Yellow Hands Sioux off their sacred land. The Indians retreat, but await supernatural punishment to descend on their usurpers. John Morgan, 8th Earl of Kildare, who had lived with the tribe for years and is known as Horse, leaves his English fiancée and estate and returns to America, where he discovers the Yellow Hand people have been largely massacred or put into slavery by the unscrupulous white traders and their Indian cohorts.
He finds the tribe dispirited, because of the actions of the trappers, and he begins to devise a strategy to overpower the trappers' stronghold, convincing the Indians to take direct action. Soon even the Indian women and boys are assigned tasks to aid the assault to regain their ancestral land.
Much of the film was shot in 1975 in Sonora, Mexico, with additional scenes filmed in Custer State Park in South Dakota and the United Kingdom.
The film received mixed reviews on its release. Roger Ebert, while not highly critical of the film, noted that the film attempted to take itself too seriously and paid unnecessary attention to detail. According to Ebert: "The film reveals its basic white-chauvinist bias, but it certainly seems to take itself seriously. It's of average length, but paced like an epic. There are four main movements in the plot: Return, Reconciliation, Revenge and Rebirth. If this seems a little thin for a two-hour movie, believe me, it is, even with all that portentous music trying to make it seem momentous". [2]
Ebert also criticized the repetition in the film from the original A Man Called Horse . Ebert commented that "what gets me is that initiation rite, which is repeated in this film in such grim and bloody detail you'd think people didn't have enough of it the last time. First Morgan has his pectoral muscles pierced with knife blades. Then eagle's talons are drawn through the wounds and tied to leather thongs. Then he hangs by the thongs until sufficiently purified. You'd think one ceremony like that would do the trick, without any booster shots". [2]
The Return of a Man Called Horse was released to DVD by MGM Home Video on April 1, 2003 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD.
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 American epic Western film starring, directed, and produced by Kevin Costner in his feature directorial debut. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 novel Dances with Wolves, by Michael Blake, that tells the story of Union Army Lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Costner), who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and who meets a group of Lakota.
Centennial is a 12-episode American television miniseries that aired on NBC from October 1978 to February 1979. The miniseries follows the fictional history of Centennial, Colorado, from 1795 to the 1970s. It was based on the 1974 novel of the same name by James A. Michener, was produced by John Wilder.
The Arikara War was a military conflict between the United States and Arikara in 1823 fought in the Great Plains along the Upper Missouri River in the Unorganized Territory. For the United States, the war was the first in which the United States Army was deployed for operations west of the Missouri River on the Great Plains. The war, the first and only conflict between the Arikara and the U.S., came as a response to an Arikara attack on U.S. citizens engaged in the fur trade. The Arikara War was called "the worst disaster in the history of the Western fur trade".
Man in the Wilderness is a 1971 American revisionist Western film about a scout for a group of mountain men who are traversing the Northwestern United States during the 1820s. The scout is mauled by a bear and left to die by his companions. He survives and recuperates sufficiently to track his former comrades, forcing a confrontation over his abandonment. The story is loosely based on the life of Hugh Glass. It stars Richard Harris as Zachary Bass and John Huston as Captain Henry.
The Arikara, also known as Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree, or Hundi, are a tribe of Native Americans in South Dakota. Today, they are enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
The Grattan Massacre, also known as the Grattan Fight, was the opening engagement of the First Sioux War, fought between the United States Army and Lakota Sioux warriors on August 19, 1854. It occurred east of Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory, in present-day Goshen County, Wyoming.
Jim Baker (1818–1898), known as "Honest Jim Baker", was a frontiersman, trapper, hunter, army scout, interpreter, and rancher. He was first a trapper and hunter. The decline of the fur trade in the early 1840s drove many trappers to quit, but Baker remained in the business until 1855. During that time he was a friend of Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and John C. Frémont. On August 21, 1841, he was among a group of twenty three trappers who were attacked by Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux on what became known as Battle Mountain. After Henry Fraeb was killed, Baker organized the trappers against the Native Americans in a multiple-day fight.
Farewell to the King is a 1989 American action adventure drama film written and directed by John Milius. It stars Nick Nolte, Nigel Havers, Frank McRae, and Gerry Lopez and is loosely based on the 1969 novel L'Adieu au Roi by Pierre Schoendoerffer. Longtime Milius collaborator Basil Poledouris composed the musical score.
Isaiah Dorman was an interpreter for the United States Army during the Indian Wars. He perished at the Battle of Little Bighorn, the only black man killed in the fight.
The Black Stallion Returns is a 1983 adventure film, an adaptation of the book of the same name by Walter Farley, and sequel to The Black Stallion. The only film directed by Robert Dalva, it is produced by Francis Ford Coppola for MGM/UA Entertainment Company.
Pure Luck is a 1991 American comedy film directed by Nadia Tass in her only feature film debut. It is a remake of the popular French comedy film La Chèvre (1981). The film stars Martin Short, Danny Glover, Sheila Kelly, Scott Wilson, and Sam Wanamaker.
A Man Called Horse is a 1970 Western film directed by Elliot Silverstein, produced by Sandy Howard, and written by Jack DeWitt. It is based on a short story of the same name by the Western writer Dorothy M. Johnson, first published in 1950 in Collier's magazine and again in 1968 in Johnson's book Indian Country. The basic story was used in a 1958 episode of the television series Wagon Train, also titled "A Man Called Horse". The film stars Richard Harris as the titular character, alongside Judith Anderson, Jean Gascon, Manu Tupou, Corinna Tsopei, Dub Taylor, and James Gammon.
The Mountain Men is a 1980 American adventure Western film directed by Richard Lang and starring Charlton Heston and Brian Keith. Heston's son, Fraser Clarke Heston, wrote the screenplay.
One of the Hollywood Ten is a 2000 Spanish-British bio-picture. The film was written and directed by Karl Francis.
Part 2, Sounder is a 1976 American drama film directed by William A. Graham. It is the sequel to the 1972 Oscar-nominated film Sounder, which in turn is based on William H. Armstrong's Newbery Award-winning novel of the same name.
Triumphs of a Man Called Horse is a 1983 Western film directed by John Hough and written by Ken Blackwell and Carlos Aured. It is the second and final sequel to A Man Called Horse (1970), following The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976). Richard Harris reprises his role as the titular character, starring with Michael Beck, Ana De Sade, Vaughn Armstrong, Anne Seymour, and Buck Taylor.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
The Revengers is a 1972 Western film written by Wendell Mayes based upon a story by Steven W. Carabatsos. The film was directed by Daniel Mann and stars William Holden and Ernest Borgnine.
Bull Chief was an Apsaroke (Crow) chief.
The Spider Woman Strikes Back is a 1946 American horror film starring Gale Sondergaard, with a running time of 59 minutes. Despite the similar title and role played by Sondergaard, the film is not a sequel to the Sherlock Holmes film, The Spider Woman. In The Spider Woman, Sondergaard's character is named Adrea Spedding. This time it is Zenobia Dollard.