The Last Hunt

The 1950s brought a more adult strain to the American Western with films that took on more psychologically complicated characters and historically critical perspectives. The 1956 feature The Last Hunt is set in the final years of the craze for buffalo pelts that led to the near extinction of the American buffalo. Robert Taylor stars as Charles Gilson, a racist gunman who switches from killing Native Americans to hunting buffalo, and Stewart Granger is retired buffalo hunter Sandy McKenzie, who reluctantly partners with Charles after losing his herd of cattle in a disaster. Their team, which includes a half-breed teenager assistant (Russ Tamblyn, who looks more Irish than Native American) and a drunken old coot of a muleskinner (Lloyd Nolan), grows when Charles turns a young Native American survivor (Debra Paget) of his own violence into his servant. Where Charles is angry and brutal, Sandy is respectful of tribal ways and brings out Charles’s wrath when he abandons the hunt to escort the woman to her tribe. It's a message movie that puts racism in the foreground and directly confronts how the buffalo hide trade destroyed the source of food for reservation Native Americans. It's not subtle, but director Richard Brooks observes the buffalo with dignity and majesty as seen through Sandy's eyes, which makes the wholesale slaughter all the more tragic (the filmmakers photographed the official government culling of the herd in Custer State Park), and it echoes themes presented in superior films such as Broken Arrow and The Searchers. Making its debut on Blu-ray, extras include vintage promotional excerpts from the MGM Parade TV series. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)