Richard Harris doesn't die easily in director Richard C. Sarafian's frontier film "Man in the Wilderness," a rugged tale of survival set in 1820 about real-life tracker Hugh Glass. Although it unfolds with a savage bear attack staged with a genuine bear (Peggy the Bear) and her handler, neither the film nor Richard Harris can top the first scene with what constitutes a dreary yarn of vengeance that lumbers on for 104 minutes. Legendary writer & director John Huston co-stars as an equally determined captain who forces his beaver pelt frontiersmen to trundle a small boat through the desolation galore drawn by 22 mules. The sight of the boat with its single, small-bore cannon and Huston's lofty figure on deck in a crumpled stovepipe hat is captivating. Unfortunately, Huston doesn't have dialogue that makes you either love or loathe him like he had in Burt Kennedy's "The Deserter." Indeed, characterization is minimal in this stark adventure. Nevertheless, composer Johnny Harris' introductory theme is gripping, but the rest of the music, like the film itself, doesn't live up to the first ten minutes. Sarafian makes the going tolerable, but neither he nor scenarist Jack De Witt, who scripted another Harris survivalist saga "A Man Called Horse," can maintain momentum. Hollywood veteran Henry Wilcoxon is believable as an Indian chief, and Percy Herbert is appropriately unsavory throughout, with "Star Trek's" James Dohan as one of the trappers. "Young Frankenstein" lenser Gerry Fisher proved that he was adept both in a studio as well as out in the hinterlands. Fisher's widescreen cinematography is gorgeous, especially when you realize that "Man in the Wilderness" was photographed on location in Spain.
The movie opens with the following exposition preceding the credits. "The Captain Henry Expedition has completed two years of fur trapping in the unexplored Northwest territory. Determined to reach the Missouri River before the winter snows the trappers and their boat, towed by 22 mules, struggled through the wilderness. Once on the Missouri they could sail south to the trading posts and sell their precious cargo. What occurred on this expedition is historically true." Of course, it is the trappers versus the Native Americans. Through flashbacks, we learn that our never-say-die protagonist was an atheist who had no use for God after his compassionate wife perished and left a son behind. Trouble with "Man in the Wilderness" is it's a contemplative movie that shows the leading man adapting to the perils of the treacherous environment that he has to live off. Boy Scouts would love this movie, especially when Harris builds fires. The ending amounts to something of a letdown. After a full-scale Indians on horseback attack on the boat in a shallow river bed, Zachery Bass—who survived a brush with the Indians, too—marches up to an apprehensive Henry (John Huston of "Chinatown") and appropriates his rifle and then tramps off to see the son that he refused to bring up in his youth. For all practical purposes, Leonardo DeCaprio remade this movie as "The Revenant."
The movie opens with the following exposition preceding the credits. "The Captain Henry Expedition has completed two years of fur trapping in the unexplored Northwest territory. Determined to reach the Missouri River before the winter snows the trappers and their boat, towed by 22 mules, struggled through the wilderness. Once on the Missouri they could sail south to the trading posts and sell their precious cargo. What occurred on this expedition is historically true." Of course, it is the trappers versus the Native Americans. Through flashbacks, we learn that our never-say-die protagonist was an atheist who had no use for God after his compassionate wife perished and left a son behind. Trouble with "Man in the Wilderness" is it's a contemplative movie that shows the leading man adapting to the perils of the treacherous environment that he has to live off. Boy Scouts would love this movie, especially when Harris builds fires. The ending amounts to something of a letdown. After a full-scale Indians on horseback attack on the boat in a shallow river bed, Zachery Bass—who survived a brush with the Indians, too—marches up to an apprehensive Henry (John Huston of "Chinatown") and appropriates his rifle and then tramps off to see the son that he refused to bring up in his youth. For all practical purposes, Leonardo DeCaprio remade this movie as "The Revenant."