Trailer
Plot summary
Hunting in the Dakotas, John Morgan, an English lord, is set upon by Sioux warriors. His guides are killed, but the chief, Yellow Hand, marvels at his blond hair and spares him. In the village the women and children mock him and treat him as a wild horse, and a rope is kept around his neck; he is given as a gift to the old woman Buffalo Cow Head, to be her slave. There he meets Running Deer, the chief's young sister, and Batise, half Sioux and half French, who becomes his friend and interpreter and warns him that escape is hopeless. Morgan tries anyway and is recaptured, so he decides to wait. When a Shoshone war party approaches the village, he kills two of its scouts.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Man Called Horse (1970)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Sandy Howard says Richard Harris was the fifth actor offered the lead role of the captured English aristocrat, with Robert Redford having turned it down first.
- Producer Sandy Howard discovered the original story while recovering from an illness in Japan and bought the film rights for just $250.
- For the film's painful-looking Sun Vow initiation scene, in which Richard Harris's character is hung from pins through his chest, make-up artist John Chambers built a prosthetic chest to make the ordeal safe to film.
- Star Richard Harris and director Elliot Silverstein clashed badly during filming; producer Sandy Howard later called Silverstein "a disastrous choice" as director, saying, "He was a rat and a bad director... He turned in a movie that had such great potential but it was a dud."
- Producer Sandy Howard says he and Jerry Henshaw of Cinema Center Films had to recut the finished movie themselves, and that director Elliot Silverstein's approach added $2 million and a year of delay to production.
- A Man Called Horse was the first American Western to try to make the Sioux the story's protagonists and celebrate their culture, though it still relied on white lead actors to draw a mainstream audience.
