A Man Called Horse Review

A Man Called Horse
Richard Harris plays an English lord captured by the Sioux Indians, who give him an allegedly authentic taste of their tribal customs.

by Kim Newman |
Published on
Release Date:

01 May 1970

Running Time:

114 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

A Man Called Horse

Richard Harris gets hung by hooks through his chest in the infamous Sun Vow Initiation sequence, much imitated in video nasties, but otherwise this 1970s hippie-era version of Dances With Wolves is unmemorable.

Harris' masochist excesses as a British nobleman abducted by the Sioux and enduring trials before being accepted as an Injun hardly sit well with such "realistic" touches as casting Dame Judith Anderson as a Sioux matriarch.

Straining for significance at every moment, this is one of a wave of late '60s/early '70s Westerns that represent Hollywood's idea of the counterculture in love beads, feathers and picturesque gore.

Apparently not having that bad a time of it, Harris followed up with three more oddly sado-masochistic Westerns, including Man in the Wilderness (1971), The Deadly Trackers (1973) and The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976).

Of real interest to gorehounds only.
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