PHANTOM EMPIRES
  • MOVIES
  • OLD TIME RADIO
  • US TV
  • UK-TV
  • MOUNTIE PULP!
  • BOOKS
  • ARTISTS
  • ALMANAC
  • My Fiction
  • contact

Buffalo Rider (1976/77)  A nod to Dan Haggerty ~ R.I.P.

1/23/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
In honour of the sad, recent death of Dan Haggerty,  best known from his role as Grizzly Adams on the show of the same name,  I thought I'd put a marker here on Phantom Empires as a small testament to his effect on my young life.  To be honest,  Haggerty's passing was a bit of a shock.  I'd  got the DVD sets of two seasons of the show within the last couple of years, and his influence had just recently become clear to me.  I grew up in the pacific northwest, surrounded by fields and forest, on a farm between two small towns.  I very much saw Grizzly Adams as one of my own.  To me he stood tall with chaps like Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone, and with families like the Waltons, The Wilderness Family, (and especially) the Ingalls family in their little house on the prairie.  Grizzly Adams was a major friend of my imagination in the 70's.  That was the decade of my formative years, beginning at age three and ending at age thirteen, at just the time in one's life when personal values are best developed, and Haggerty's Adams was one of my many good teachers. I dreamed about his sort of life. I stalked the forests looking for bears to befriend (never found one, but my dog Smokey was just as good, and probably a bit more feral),  camped out in the wild forest (populated by fiercely docile cattle and lots of crows), and substituted a tobacco-chewing, banjo-playing neighbor for Adams' mountain man friend Mad Jack (played with the appropriate grizzle by the charismatic Denver Pyle).  

I watched the series religiously...it was cool.   

Initially I considered doing a review of the GRIZZLY ADAMS series for this occasion (I may still),  but that's not generally my style...I prefer less a direct sort of a eulogy. So,  in this spirit,  I present the fun and wholesome 1977 (or 1976, depending on whether you believe the titles or the credits) film BUFFALO RIDER.  Released under the "Starfire films" banner (of which I haven't heard),  it was directed by George Lauris and/or Dick Robinson and John Fabian (depending on whether you believe the titles or the credits).  It has a strong TV movie feel...and by that I mean a 70's TV movie feel,  which is very much a good thing in my book. At the core it's very wholesome.  That's the key here...wholesomeness. The 70's were the real beginnings of the mainstreaming of postmodernism,  and certain factions of the American public didn't (don't) like how fast (and where) this process was leading them.  I believe that shows like LITTLE HOUSE and THE WALTONS started cropping up as a refuge for those people to rest in.  GRIZZLY ADAMS was certainly one of these shows,  and no less so was BUFFALO RIDER.

Set in the late 1880's (otherwise known as the 'olden days'),  it centers around the subject of Buffalo hunters and the mass hunting of the Buffalo for hides.  As the film itself tells,  new techniques for the processing of the soft hides of Buffalo had made it more useful (as the hide of cattle had been),  which was bad news for the existence of those beautiful critters.  Before that era was finished,  herds of millions were brutally and wastefully whittled to hundreds.  

It was in this world that Jake Jones lived.  

Based on a real person,  the Jake Jones in the film was called "Buffalo Jones"  by both the Indians and the settlers.  He left a life in Texas, according to the narrator (rustically rasped by C. Lindsay Workman),  disgusted by the mass butchery of the southern Buffalo herds, and headed up north,  to live life of a wilderness hermit.  His character was known to be honest and respectful;  our wilderness hermits, as Grizzly Adams shows,  should be thus.  He wore the appropriate leather mountain man clothes,  and his long hair and bushy mustache would have been the envy of every trapper and "Griz" hunter from Colorado to Alaska.

It's exactly this sort of fellow that would tame and ride a Buffalo.

After saving a baby Buffalo from attack by hungry coyotes (which he doesn't kill, btw),  Jones takes him under his wing and keeps him safe for the winter.  During that time, the Buffalo,  by this time (appropriately) named Samson,  has grown into quite a beast...six feet at the hump,  and around two thousand pounds.  A bit bigger than Grizzly Adams' pet bear Ben,  wot?  So, Jones gets the crazy idea to put a saddle on his new critter,  and after a bit of creative negotiating,  they become a lean, mean, wilderness-hopping machine.  Cue banjo music.  Yep, banjo music.

Great fun.

The pair have some rollickin' adventures;  they fight a wolf,  chase a bear (a sort of dig at Grizzly Adams, if indirectly, I think),  get shot at by Indians (Samson is seen as 'big magic', so he's in great demand), champion a woman and her infant child, brave rough rivers, and, in much of the plot, get harassed by the evil Buff Hunter Frank Nesbitt (John Freeman), and his shaggy, mean, (and quite ugly) hide-skinners Ralph Pierce and Ted Clayborn (played by Rich Scheeland and George Sager, respectively). The climax is a gunfight in a saloon, and if you haven't seen a bar fight including a Buffalo,  I think you must. Shot in various wild locales,  it made me want to pack up and head right up into the wild country (if, in fact, that still exists anywhere).  This simple and relatively innocent story was, relative to what one sees these days,  quite refreshing and jolly (if a tad silly...and probably BECAUSE it was a tad silly),  and it was interesting enough for me to track down the historical Jake Jones...which is exactly what I did for the historical Grizzly Adams.

Full Circle.

I live in North Dakota,  and last year I visited a place where Buffaloes are kept (they have a white one there,  and a giant Buffalo statue...they're serious), and also was fortunate enough to go to South Dakota and experience a small herd of the big, beautiful, beasts.  In my imagination I tied these experiences together with this film,  which made for great memories of both. I recommend THE BUFFALO RIDER for that lazy Sunday morning (or afternoon, if you're church-folk) in which you crave something light and frisky to spend the time between breakfast and later plans.  I predict you'll want to go hiking afterward,  or maybe you'll try to find a way to pet a Buffalo.

...which is exactly what I did after I saw it;  North Dakota is good like that.

To the right here is the mp3 of THE BALLAD OF BUFFALO JONES.  Enjoy!
the_ballad_of_buffalo_jones.mp3
File Size: 1247 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

Picture
0 Comments
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Latest Reviews
    (click to visit)

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Classic Movie Blog Hub Member

    MOUNTIE FILMS.pdf
    File Size: 73 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    Here is my (ever-growing) list of Mountie movies and serials!  Enjoy!

    Upcoming Events


    Cool Blogs
    STALKING MOON
    Classic Film & TV Cafe'
    MOVIES SILENTLY

    CAFTAN WOMAN
    RIDING THE HIGH COUNTRY

    SILVER SCREENINGS
    SHADOWS & SATIN
    SPEAKEASY
    LAURA'S MISC. MUSINGS
    LADY EVE'S REEL LIFE
    They Don't Make 'em Like they Used to
    SILENTOLOGY
    Pre-Code  Film
    SILVER SCENES

    Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

    Mike's Take on Movies

    THE LIST

    All
    13 Assassins
    15 Post 1979 Films
    5 Films
    9 Hours To Rama
    Adventures Of Tartu
    A Heidi 2-Fer
    Alan Ladd
    Al Pachino
    A Man Called Horse
    Anthony Hopkins
    A Patch Of Blue
    Audie Murphy
    A Yank In Libya
    Barrymore
    Barry Sullivan
    Basil Rathbone
    BIRTHDAYS
    BLOGATHON
    Bogdan Stupka
    Breezy
    British Empire
    Buck Jones
    Buffalo Rider
    Caesar The Conqueror
    Cameron Mitchell
    Caryl Of The Mountains
    Chambara
    Chinatown
    Cisco Kid
    Claudette Colbert
    Cliff Edwards
    Clint Eastwood
    Colossus: The Forbin Project
    Come Next Spring
    Cowboy Motorcycles
    Dana Andrews
    Dan Haggerty
    Deborah Kerr
    Dick Powell
    Django
    Duncan Reynaldo
    Dustin Hoffman
    Eleanor Hunt
    Errol Flynn
    Faye Dunaway
    FILM BLOGGERY - Notes
    Foreign Legion Films
    Fort Vengeance
    Francis Sullivan
    Francis X. Bushman Jr.
    Franco Nero
    Fred Williamson
    Gary Cooper
    Gene Hackman
    George Hilton
    Giants Of Rome
    GLADIATORS SEVEN
    Go-Get-em Haines
    Gregory Peck
    Guy Rolfe
    Haldane Of The Secret Sevice
    HAMMER FILMS
    Harry Carey Jr.
    Harry Houdini
    HEART OF THE NORTH
    Hollywood Chess
    Horst Buchholz
    Humphrey Bogart
    Jack Nicholson
    James Craig
    James Oliver Curwood
    Jim Brown
    Jim Kelly
    Jimmy Stewart
    John Carradine
    John Huston
    Johnny Mack Brown
    John Wayne
    Jose Ferrer
    J. S. Casshyap
    Kay Lenz
    Ken Maynard
    King Of The Khyber Rifles
    KITOSCH
    Lee Van Cleef
    Leslie Howard
    Little Big Man
    Lon Chaney
    Love Affair
    MASSACRE TIME
    Mountain Man Movies
    Mountie Films
    MRS. MIKE
    My Man Godfrey 1957
    Nicholas & Alexandra
    NO!
    Nomads Of The North
    NORTHERN PURSUIT
    North West Mounted Police
    Northwest Rangers
    Oliver Reed
    Orientalism In Film
    Overland Red
    Peplums
    Pimpernel Smith
    QUO VADIS
    Rasputin & The Empress
    Reginald Denny
    Richard Harris
    Richard Harrison
    Rin-Tin-Tin
    Robert Donat
    Robert Morley
    Robert Ryan
    Ronald Colman
    Roy Rogers
    Sabotage Agent
    Serpico
    Shirley Temple
    Sidney Poitier
    SILENT FILMS
    Spaghetti Western
    Stranglers Of Bombay
    Take A Hard Ride
    Talbot Mundy
    Taras Bulba
    The Black Watch
    THE CANADIANS
    The Cossacks
    The Hunting Party
    The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp
    The Mad Doctor
    The Prisoner Of Shark Island
    The Scarlet Pimpernel
    The Trap
    The Two Jakes
    Tim McCoy
    Tom Baker
    Tom Mix
    Top Ten Cowboys
    Tyrone Power
    Ukulele Ike
    Under Two Flags
    Victor McLaglen
    Warner Baxter
    We're In The Legion Now!
    Western Films List
    Westerns Through Time
    When Eight Bells Toll
    William Boyd
    Worst Film Accents
    Yankee Clipper
    ZARDOZ
    Казаки

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.