Charles Jones was born in 1844. He was known for being one of the cofounders
of Garden City, Kansas, as well as being one of the main protectors of buffalo
during his lifetime. He captured many of
the wild creatures in order to prevent their death and impending
extinction. When he passed away in 1919
at the age of 75, he left behind a legacy of fighting for the lives of animals.
This legacy was captured in the 1978 film Buffalo Rider, which might not have been
the most realistic depiction of the man, but showed his caring nature for
buffalo. Jake Jones (Rick Guinn) was a
frontiersman who encountered an endangered baby buffalo. He captured it and raised it, eventually
learning how to ride the buffalo. He
even named it Samson. Together, they
took down the hunters who were causing the extinction of the buffalo, and
cleaned up the frontier.
The story of Buffalo
Rider might seem like it could be a good western. There’s certainly a way in which it could become
one of the classics. The 1978 adaptation
of the story was not a successful attempt.
There were too many bits and pieces that felt long, pointless, or
dangerous in unnecessary ways. A vast
improvement would be necessary to make Buffalo
Rider into a classic that people would want to watch. As it is now, it’s a ridiculous movie filled
with crazy pieces that never gelled together.
Let’s take a look at some of these moments.
The Narration
Narration, when used properly, can be an important part of
building a world or characters. It can
set up events that happened prior to the story unfolding. It can also be used to let the audience in on
the thoughts of the characters. These
two things make narration essential to some movies. That’s not what happened in the case of Buffalo Rider.
The narration in Buffalo
Rider was on the more irritating side of things. There’s a saying in film that goes something
like “show, don’t tell.” Buffalo Rider did show the things that
needed to be shown, but it also told those same things. The narration doubled up on the story,
telling the audience exactly what was happening. It was a redundancy that took away from the
story.
The other downfall of the narration was that it frequently took
place of the dialogue. The narrator
would say what the characters were saying, and the characters wouldn’t say
it. Maybe they didn’t have the proper
audio equipment and couldn’t record the dialogue. But if they had time for the narration
recording, they could have done some ADR work.
That would have been only the smallest bit more difficult than recording
the narrator talking about those scenes.
It all felt like there was no focus on the audio work. They didn’t care enough to have the
characters speak their dialogue and thought the narration would be a better way
to do it. It wasn’t. It took away from what Buffalo Rider could have been, making the movie less
entertaining. Nobody wants a movie of
all narration, unless it’s a documentary.
Animal Violence
For whatever reason, there was a lot of animal violence
throughout Buffalo Rider. 1978 was a different time for movies, though
I would have thought that there had already been a crackdown on animal
violence. It’s weird to see this sort of
cruelty depicted on screen. Death and
mauling done to animals is something that should not be shown in films that
aren’t documentaries. There are other
ways to go about this sort of thing in narrative films that doesn’t involve
actual animals being harmed. Alas, there
were many animals harmed in the making of Buffalo
Rider.
Violent acts began early as the hunters were introduced in
the first few minutes. They were shown
hunting buffalo and shooting them for skins.
That could be any movie, though.
The difference was that they were actually shooting the buffalo. At least, it sure looked like it. They were shooting from a distance with
rifles and the buffalo were falling over as if they had been shot. It was either real shooting and killing, or
exceptional acting buffalo that have never existed.
Animal violence would continue throughout Buffalo Rider in different forms. A cougar attacked a raccoon and threw it into
the river before the raccoon floated downstream in a flood. A cougar attacked the main character and
mauled the actor’s shoulders. The
buffalo kicked a wolf in the head. In
the biggest fight of them all, a bear attacked a man, leaving him for dead on
the ground while fighting with another bear over their meal. Buffalo Jones then showed up to shoot his
pistol at both bears while they fought.
There was animal on human violence, human on animal violence, and animal
on animal violence filling out the hour and a half runtime.
Child Endangerment
Just as worrisome as the animal violence, there was some
major child endangerment in Buffalo Rider. Partway through the movie, Buffalo Jones and
Samson came across a baby whose family had been killed. They took up the baby and began travelling. At one point, Jake Jones and his buffalo came
to a river that they had to cross. It
was too deep to walk across, so Buffalo Jones took the baby in his hand and
began swimming. The baby’s head bobbed
up and down in the water, a dangerous situation for the child. How they thought that this was a scene that
needed to be included is something that will never be answered. It’s baffling that they would risk the life
of a baby like this.
The Song
Some movies feature significant songs on their soundtracks. These songs could be famous songs retrofitted
to the movie because they either go with the action, or the filmmakers want to
connect their audience to the movie a little bit more. The more interesting examples are when the
movies commission an original song as part of their soundtrack. The songs become popular and the movie is
forever connected to them.
There was a theme song to Buffalo Rider. It wasn’t a
piece of score that was composed as the main character’s theme song. It was a full, lyrical song that played
during the movie all about Buffalo Jones.
The song was also the backing track for the movie’s trailer. It was a slow 1970s country style song with
hints of rock to it, and may have ended up being the best part of the entire
mess of a movie.
The Saloon
One moment stood out above the others. There was an image of the outside of a
saloon. Buffalo Jones and Samson walked
up to it, then they ran in the door.
They stomped around the saloon shooting the bad guys who were
inside. It was a ridiculous action scene
involving a giant buffalo in a small space destroying furniture while the guy
riding it killed the hunters from the beginning of the movie. Aside from the chase at the end, and the
animal fighting, this was THE action set piece of the movie.
Buffalo Rider was
one of the strangest movies to be included in the Sunday “Bad” Movies in quite
some time. Where others might be weird,
they seem to have reason for being as weird as they are. This one seemed to have no rhyme or reason to
the creative choices made by the trio of directors. There was no reason to show so much animal
violence or to endanger a baby. The
narration didn’t need to be what drove the story forward. That should have been left to what was on
screen. Everything about the movie was baffling.
This was not a true representation of Charles Jones. Why did they change his name to Jake? There was no reason. There was also no reason to leave out how
much he did for buffalo as a species. He
saved more than one, and he wasn’t known so much for riding them. This was like a movie made by The Asylum long
before The Asylum started making movies.
1978 saw the release of Buffalo
Rider. No other year can make that
claim. The movie showed a fictionalized
story of Buffalo Jones, yet made it out to be factual. It played like a documentary, but with an
obviously narrative script. It’s not
that watchable. It’s not that
entertaining. It’s more mind-boggling
than anything, leaving more questions than answers, and there wasn’t that much
to answer. There’s a reason that people
think Buffalo Rider is a bad
movie. The reason is that it is bad.
Now for some notes:
- Buffalo Rider was suggested by @thenickisaac, who previously suggested D.E.B.S. (week 111), Drop Zone (week 132), Mom and Dad Save the World (week 186), Remote Control (week 246), and American Ultra (week 261).
- I mentioned The Asylum. A few of their movies that have been featured in the blog include The Da Vinci Treasure (week 268), The Beast of Bray Road (week 176), Bermuda Tentacles (week 96), and The Coed and the Zombie Stoner (week 102).
- Have you seen Buffalo Rider? What did you think about it? Are there any comparable movies to it? Let me know in the comments.
- You can also use the comments to leave me a suggestion for what I should watch. Maybe you can be the next @thenickisaac. If you don’t want to leave a comment, find me on Twitter.
- Snapchat is another place to find me (jurassicgriffin). I put up clips of bad movies, sometimes, and other times share other things.
- Next up, we dive into the 1980s with my favourite (for some reason) year to cover in that decade, 1986. The movie on deck is Slaughter High, which I can only assume is a slasher movie set in a high school. I might be wrong, but I’m still looking forward to it. We’ll see how I feel in a week. See you then.
