The Return of a Man Called Horse

The Return of a Man Called Horse is a 1976 Western film directed by Irvin Kershner and written by Jack DeWitt. It is a sequel to the 1970 film A Man Called Horse, in turn based on Dorothy M. Johnson’s short story of the same name, with Richard Harris reprises his role as Horse, a British aristocrat who has become a member of a tribe of Lakota Sioux. Other cast members include Gale Sondergaard, Geoffrey Lewis, and William Lucking. Like its predecessor, the film is a Mexican-American co-production shot primarily on-location in Mexico. Like its predecessor, the film was largely a critical and financial success, but was criticized by some for rehashing earlier plot elements. It was followed by a sequel in 1983, Triumphs of a Man Called Horse. Plot Trappers with government support force the Yellow Hands Sioux off their sacred land. The Indians retreat, but await supernatural punishment to descend on their usurpers. John Morgan, 8th Earl of Kildare, who had lived with the tribe for years and is known as Horse, leaves his English fiancée and estate and returns to America, where he discovers the Yellow Hand people have been largely massacred or put into slavery by the unscrupulous white traders and their Indian cohorts. He finds the tribe dispirited, because of the actions of the trappers, and he begins to devise a strategy to overpower the trappers' stronghold, convincing the Indians to take direct action. Soon even the Indian women and boys are assigned tasks to aid the assault to regain their ancestral land.