Sat 20 Sep 2014
A Western Review by Dan Stumpf: MILTON LOTT – The Last Hunt (Book/Film ).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction , Western movies[6] Comments
MILTON LOTT – The Last Hunt. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1954. Cardinal paperback C-203, 1955. Gregg Press, hardvover reprint, 1979.
THE LAST HUNT. MGM, 1956. Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Lloyd Nolan, Debra Paget, Russ Tamblyn, Constance Ford, Joe De Santis. Based on the novel by Milton Lott. Director: Richard Brooks.
Fans of Western fiction need to run out and get a copy of this book, which ranks right up there with The Big Sky, The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones and a very few others as one of the great novels of the American West.
Lott takes a simple tale of buffalo hunters in the 1880s, charges it with vivid description of an unforgettable countryside, adds some thoughtful and very surprising plot twists, and lights it up with scenes and characters you won’t forget.
Lott has a way of telling a story that seems to build up to a dramatic life-or-death confrontation every so often, then suddenly develops it with a maturity and naturalness that seems to grow directly from the characters and their setting.
Even the bit players come alive here, and Lott’s descriptive powers are such that — well let me just say that when the freighter trekked through a Dakota blizzard, I forgot the warm Ohio Sun on my back and felt myself shiver!
MGM filmed this in 1956, and they did a pretty fine job of it, too. Writer/director Richard Brooks always loved filming Literature, but he sometimes stumbled rather badly. Here though, he takes the best bits form Lott’s novel, simplifies when he has to, plays up the drama nicely, and doesn’t flinch from the grimmest parts. Along the way, he loses a bit of what makes the book so unique, but he turns out a damfine movie, so what’s to complain?
I should also mention the acting: where Lott evoked character, Brooks provokes performance. Robert Taylor makes a chilling kill-crazy hunter (his second portrait of a psycho, after Undercurrent) Stewart Granger — who lost his wife to Brooks in real life — seems at home on the range in his first and best real Western; Russ Tamblyn looks a bit unlikely as a red-haired Indian, but that’s how Lott wrote it; Debra Paget, typecast again as a dusky Indian maiden walks through the part with assurance, and best of all—best of all is Lloyd Nolan as a one-legged mule-skinner whose commentary on the proceedings puts things into context.
He sometimes seems to be carrying Brooks’ Important Message for him a little too obviously, but he does it with such robust good humor I didn’t mind a bit.
September 20th, 2014 at 11:40 pm
I’ve seen this film a couple times and the last time I saw it was in 2010 when I gave it an 8 out of 10. Very good except for Russ Tamblyn as an Indian. Hard to believe but the march of civilization caused the Buffalo herds to go from 60 million in 1853 to 30,000 in 1883. Real buffalo were killed during the making of this movie as they thinned out the herds.
September 21st, 2014 at 7:25 am
On our last big trip together, Kathy & I drove past Buffalo in the Dakota Badlands. As she said at the time, “They’re big, they’re close, and they don’t look glad to see us.”
September 21st, 2014 at 11:53 pm
I hate to tell everyone, but I live in Oklahoma and light skinned even freckled blonde and red haired blue eyed Indians are common and have been for generations in areas where more peaceful tribes interacted with whites regularly — my father in law was one — I don’t mean Indian by distant relatives, I mean tribal members. My wife was a green eyed redhead and her grandfather had worn braids though she had no tribal membership because her mother chose not to. Of course there are traditional Indians as well, and black and red haired black Indians, and I know one who is part Japanese but still a member of a tribe.
Quanah Parker the great Comanche war chief was half white.
At the time the book and movie are set being raised as an Indian and Indian blood, like black blood, marked you whether you had Caucasian looks or not — certainly so called ‘half breeds.’ The cultural difference was so great that it would have been difficult for someone like Tamblyn’s character raised Indian with little education to even pose white with the right clothes and a hair cut.
Lott and the film makers got that right, light skinned Indians were fairly common from the time of the Viking incursions.
It’s a terrific film, and with a great ending. Nolan is almost unrecognizable, and anyone who doubts Robert Taylor can act should see this one (in ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT he and Granger switched places and Granger was the more or less bad guy).
This may be the best little known epic western ever made. It has sweep, depth, and intelligence as well as a refreshing rawness. Granger’s relationship with Paget is particularly well drawn despite some standard romance elements.
Incidentally in relation to Granger English, Irish, and Scots and other nationalities weren’t that unusual on the frontier either in fact if you read Louis L’Amour you will find many books like SHALAKO feature a hero who served in the British Army or recently came over like many Irish to work on the railroad. Ben Thompson, one of the great gunfighters/lawmen, was English. Bat Masterson was a first generation Irish Canadian.
The West was a place to start over, often with a new name and life, and it attracted people from all over the world.
At least in this one Granger wasn’t playing Old Shatterhand.
September 22nd, 2014 at 2:58 pm
Dave, it wasn’t so much Russ Tamblyn’s red hair–I know from red-haired Indians–but that he’s so firmly implanted in my head as a song-and-dance guy. I have to say though, he did a fine job in his big scene.
February 11th, 2016 at 2:30 am
This movie along with “The Devil’s Doorway” is Mr. Taylor’s best performance. In his other western movie, “Westward the women”, it was the women who were the strength of the movie, while he complimented the actresses. His manly attraction was always present in these movies.
November 6th, 2017 at 7:02 am
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