A weary and somber Charles Bronson plays Wild Bill Hickok as he returns to the west to hunt a giant white buffalo that haunts his dreams. Along for the hunt are 'One Eye' (Jack Warden) as an Indian hater, and Chief Crazy Horse aka 'Worm' (Will Sampson), an Indian who's daughter was killed by the buffalo.
A fantastical wild west take on Moby Dick, the film has a lurid kinda dreamlike quality. The buffalo itself is a large mechanical monstrosity with limited movement. All it can really do is buck and glide on a rail. But if you're keyed in it can be a lot of fun. Filmed on location in Colorado the snow swept mountains are majestic and the towns are dirty and muddy with a gritty realistic quality. When Bronson's train pulls into town we see a giant wall made of buffalo bones. Kim Novak plays an ex prostitute and friend of Bronson's named 'Poker Jenny' who wants to take care of Bronson, wink-wink. But Bronson shuns her advances, with only the hunt of the buffalo on his mind. Bronson's dreams haunt him so bad he continually wakes up with guns blazin' scaring everyone around him to death. So he heads out into the mountains to kill the great white buffalo once and for all!
The movie opens like a filmed dream with the beast destroying an Indian village. It feels more like a horror fantasy than any kind of western. It has cameos galore but nobody gets much to do. Jack Warden and Will Sampson are fun as the they exchange pleasantries, weapons and glass eyeballs! Slim Pickens plays a stagecoach driver who probably gets the most dialogue in the whole movie. John Carradine is a creepy undertaker. Clint Walker is a brutish trapper. Ed Lauter is great as Tom Custer looking to take down Hickok in a brief saloon fight. Even Martin Kove shows up!
I love this movie way more than I should. For fans of westerns, Bronson and buffalo. Makes a good double feature with TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN (1958) where Sterling Hayden brings a whaling harpoon to a gunfight.
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