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xsBusiness - Buffalo Bill (1944)
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List Price: $39.98
Our Price: $19.99
Your Save: $ 19.99 ( 50% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Joel McCrea, Maureen O'Hara, Linda Darnell, Thomas Mitchell, Edgar Buchanan
Directed By: William A. Wellman
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301528573
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 6301528573
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: 1989-11-22
Running Time: 90
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 1944-04
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Linda Darnell fans - Beware!
Comment: If you buy this film expecting to see the pretty Linda Darnell in a worthy role, watch out! Though she's billed third, she's in, perhaps, 15 minutes tops as a sulking, jealous rival for Buffalo Bill's love interest (played by Maureen O'Hara). All I can say is that Linda must have been on someone's "you know what" list to have been demoted from headliner to such a small (and unnecessary) role. I love Maureen O'Hara and bought this DVD mainly due to reading about the film in her autobiography, "'Tis Herself". Joel McCrea is believable as Buffalo Bill and must have been on "loan" for the part (I can't imagine any of Fox's players at the time in this role). Not the best story line, still enjoyable. I would recommend this only if you are a fan of McCrea or O'Hara.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Movie!
Comment: Although historically inept, the movie has a fine empathetic performance by Joel McCrae, and a surpisingly sympathetic view of Native Americans. Well made, briliant color and epic scope it is a fine addition to anyone's Western collection. Just don't believe anything in it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Buffalo Bill
Comment: its a well done movie, good entertainment,Joel McCrea's a good actor, and I can't think of him doing a bad movie
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hero of War Bonnet Gorge
Comment: Rule #1 - If you want history, read a book.
William Wellman's BUFFALO BILL (1944) stars Joel McCrea as the western army scout Buffalo Bill Cody, hero of dime novels and owner and star of a legendary Wild West show. Two-thirds Hollywood hokum and one-third kind of accurate, it's nonetheless entertaining. What more can we ask from a movie?
The movie opens in an US army outpost somewhere on the western edge of the great plains. Cody acts as scout for the army, as well as liaison with a local Cheyenne tribe. Cody has been a friend of one of the tribes chiefs, Yellow Hand (Anthony Quinn), since they were children. In fact, the movie tells us, Cody saved his life and, as such things go in westerns, incurs a lifelong debt from the grateful Yellow Hand. (NB - The Yellow Hand character is based on a Cheyenne chief named Yellow Hair, who, after Custer's fateful trip up the Little Big Horn, Cody "shot, stabbed, and scalped in about five seconds." Yellow Hair (Hand) is a real character in the Buffalo Bill myth only because he was immortalized in an act in the Wild West show. The act was titled `Buffalo Bill's First Scalp for Custer.' Hardly a way to treat a childhood friend, even in the wild and wooly west.) Buffalo Bill and Yellow Hand do have a showdown scene in the movie, although it's rather honorable and, thankfully, scalping-free.
While an outpost scout Cody meets and marries Louisa Frederici (Maureen O'Hara), with whom he has a son. (The movie omits the fact that the real Buffalo Bill sued his wife for divorce in 1905... okay, I'll quit now. You get the idea.) While there he also meets the mellifluous pulp author Ned Buntline (Thomas Mitchell.) With newborn in tow and Buntline presumably back east creating a legend, Buffalo Bill is presented with his first great decision - the outpost is being abandoned and the soldiers are going to link up with a force in the Sioux Territory: Does Buffalo Bill leave the soldiers to grope their way north through hostile territory and probable slaughter, or does he abandon his wife and child to return east to civilization and safety alone?
If BUFFALO BILL plays a little fast and loose with the facts, its heart is in the right place. Its sympathetic to Yellow Hand's Cheyennes, presenting them as a people who are starved to violence by the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo. "The Cheyenne had no choice," Buffalo Bill says at one point. "It's a bad thing for a man to starve." It's not a sentiment you normally see in a western from 1944. Buffalo Bill does finally make it to the east, and we track his progress from the Astor House to command performances before the crowned heads of Europe.
Although it fails as history BUFFALO BILL is pretty entertaining. Joel McCrea had an easy-going screen persona that works well here, and the beautiful Maureen O'Hara is always a pleasure. Quinn does well (this was well before he began to seriously over-act), and Edgar Buchanan delivers as a crusty old calvary sergeant. The only anchor in the cast is poor, beautiful Linda Darnell as schoolmarm/Indian princess Dawn Starlight. Darnell was not a very strong actress, and her character is a bit of a mystery. She seems to bear an unrequited lover for Buffalo Bill, but it doesn't read right. All the dots don't connect with her character and it looks like some of her scenes, scenes which might have made sense of things, were left on the cutting room floor.
The print was in very good condition, and the colors were quite vibrant. High recommendation for this one, especially for fans of traditional westerns.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Joel McCrea as Buffalo Bill
Comment: Well,so this Western biopic is wildly off from an historical point of view, but, nevermind, as entertainment it fills the bill and more. BUFFALO BILL is the kind of wholesome, patriotic film that fifty years ago provided solid good entertainment with good production values--and we kinda miss its kind today. McCrea never did a bad job of acting in any of his films, and here he keeps the action going, even when it becomes a bit desultory during the second half of the movie. He really is a pleasure to watch and hear...so easy in the saddle and with his lines. So, lay back and enjoy this film, and with family.
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