The Scalphunters

The Scalphunters is a 1968 American Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis and Telly Savalas. The film was directed by Sydney Pollack, with the score written by Elmer Bernstein. Davis was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film. Filming took place in Sierra de Órganos National Park in the town of Sombrerete, Mexico. Plot Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster), an American fur trapper, is on his way to sell the hides he has amassed over the winter. He encounters a group of Kiowa Indians led by Two Crows (Armando Silvestre), who take his furs. In exchange, they give a disgusted Bass a slave, Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis), whom they had previously taken from a group of Comanches. Lee is a well-educated and refined house slave, unfamiliar with the ways of the wilderness. Bass sets out to recover the furs from the Kiowa. Lee makes an unsuccessful attempt to escape, then follows along. As Lee and Bass catch up to the Kiowa, they watch them being ambushed by a group of scalphunters, after the bounty offered by the government for each Native American scalp they bring in. The scalphunters, led by Jim Howie (Telly Savalas), kill the Kiowas and take Bass's furs. Bass and Lee trail the new group.