The Hunting Party (1971)

Let's be realistic.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

I first saw "Hunting Party" (1971) at the base theater during my Air Force days. Films on base typically ran for only one day (three shows) and this was one of a handful that drew capacity crowds to the second and third shows due to "word of mouth" praise by those who attended the first screening.If you liked Monte Hellman's "The Shooting" (1966) you will love this film as it appears to have served as the inspiration. It would in turn provide much of the inspiration the next year for "Chato's Land". All three films have the same tone and they share a lot of philosophical elements.At the time of my first viewing I found the film extremely troubling as it aggressively broke many conventions of the western genre and introduced an almost unparalleled level of moral ambiguity; going well beyond "Bonnie & Clyde" and "The Wild Bunch". I dwelled on the film's themes endlessly after that viewing and I caution all potential viewers that they may find it deeply disturbing. Nevertheless it is an important film that blazes a lot of new territory, putting it on a very short list of "must see" features.What with all the graphic violence it works surprisingly well as a love story. Because Candice Bergen went far deeper than her standard sterile heroine her improbable romance with Oliver Reed's character required little suspension of disbelief.For me the two most memorable scenes are the ambush at the water hole and the sharing of the jar of peaches, scenes of incredible contrast which occur midway through the film. The acting for the camera direction of the peaches scene is extraordinary, with the unbridled joy of the threesome believably reinforcing earlier clues that many of the outlaws are simply people who have had to subordinate their basic goodness in order to survive in this environment."Hunting Party" included several allegorical elements ranging from fundamental commentary on the "Human Condition" to contemporary issues like the Viet Nam war. Brandt Ruger (Gene Hackman) describes his tactics as "hit and run", early 1970's audiences could not help but relate this to the Viet Cong. Ruger's ultimately self-destructive quest to recover his manhood reflected the country's inability to "cut & run" when it became clear that our intervention in Viet Nam was an exercise in futility.The most interesting element is the way the film juxtapositions "taming of the west" elements with "Heart of Darkness" inspired descents into savagery. Thus evolving contrasts with devolving, with learning to read a civilizing element for the outlaw group and primitive rage the motivator for the civilized group.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

A vile film. Directed with zero style, wit or class by Don Medford. Oliver Reed kidnaps schoolmarm Candice Bergen and finds himself and his band of motley outlaws pursued by Bergen's lunatic husband (Gene Hackman). Hackman, a real creep who is appalled at the notion that his wife will be defiled by Reed and returned to him, sadistically decides to track down the kidnappers and pick them off one-by-one. There is so little to recommend in this god-awful junk. Reed is nearly incomprehensible, Bergen makes a strange quaking face every time a man (including Hackman) touches her and Hackman gives one of his very rare one-note performances. He's campy rather than frightening. The supporting cast features some terrific character actors like JD Spradlin, LQ Jones and Simon Oakland, but none of them (with the possible exception of Oakland)brings any color to this dreck. Three people (including William Norton) worked on the script.

Violence escalated in Hollywood movies by the late 1960s with the shoot-out in "Bonnie & Clyde" and later the bloodbath that celebrated masculinity gone berserk in Sam Peckinpah's seminal masterpiece "The Wild Bunch." Presumably, this must have inspired Jules Levy and Arthur Gardner, well known for their family oriented television series "The Rifleman," to produce this riveting western shoot'em. When you consider the wealth of talent that went into this western lensed mainly on the plains of Spain, you have to wonder how such a project could have suffered so badly with critics and audiences alike. Scenarists William Norton of "Brannigan," Gilbert Ralston of "Willard," and Lou Morheim of "The Last Blitzkrieg" definitely put their best pens forward. No sooner has illiterate outlaw Frank Calder (Oliver Reed of "The Three Musketeers") kidnapped a gorgeous woman, Melissa Ruger (Candice Bergen of "Soldier Blue"), so she can teach him how to read than the woman's hypocritical husband (Gene Hackman) pursues them with a vengeance. The husband is no ordinary individual. He is cattle baron Brandt Ruger, and he has just bought some Sharps rifles that can blast a man from twice the distance of a Winchester repeating rifle. Brandt is basically a sadist with a trophy wife and possessive streak a mile wide. Once he learns that his wife has been abducted, Brandt fears the worst. He hates the idea that Melissa will be raped and impregnated with an illegitimate child. The suggestion that Brandt might be impotent aroused my suspicions. He doesn't want to get stuck with raising a bastard. All of this occurs after Ruger has launched a hunting party with several prominent friends and a train-load of prostitutes. He decides to chase Calder and company, but he isn't so much concerned with rescuing Melissa as he is with blasting all to kingdom come. That Brandt is a sadist is clear from the outset. Director Don Medford establishes this characteristic brilliantly in the first few minutes when he cross-cuts shots of Calder and his gang carving up one of Brandt's steers with Brandt reaming Melissa out in their bedroom. Ironically, Melissa finds more compassion in the veteran outlaw.Ingeniously, "The Hunting Party" scrutinizes masculinity under-fire in what initially struck me as a mindless massacre but is far more substantial than I imagined. Ruger relishes the chance to kill Calder and his cutthroats with extreme prejudice. Calder and his men are taken aback to begin with because they cannot see their adversaries sniping away at them. Not long afterward, the gang turns on each other. By this time, in a riff on The Stockholm Syndrone, Melissa and Calder develop a mutually supportive relationship, and Brandt is predictably infuriated when his worst fears are confirmed by dying outlaw Hog Warren (L.Q. Jones of "The Wild Bunch")who Brandt stabs to death in the throat. Medford doesn't rely on exploding blood squibs. They smear blood all over their victims. By the time that Ruger and his companions have begun to whittle down the outlaws, "The Hunting Party" generates far more depth than its deceptively gratuitous violence suggests. The ending is particularly audacious. Ruger is so consumed with hate that he consigns himself to death by traipsing into the desert to kill both Calder and Melissa. The performances are exception and the line-up of western character actors who play Calder's gang is second to none. Oliver Reed delivers another stunning performance; Reed was incapable of giving a bad performance. Sadly, this rugged British actor never received the recognition that his distinguished colleagues got in the form of knight-ships! Hackman rivaled him. After the first hour, you'll wonder why the outlaws neglect to lure the hunters into an ambush and kill them. Particularly incredible is the hero who disarms himself because he had to put his best friend out of his misery after having been shot by Ruger's men. When I first saw it I loved the violence, then I turned against it later because I treated it like a derivative western with little to set it apart from other gory oaters. Now, I consider it a maligned, misunderstood horse opera that defied narrative and genre expectations. Challenging and interesting, "The Hunting Party" had more on its plate than even Peckinpah's masterpiece.

Oliver Reed is an outlaw, Frank Calder, and along with his rugged brood, swipes a cattle baron's wife, and lives to regret it. The cattle baron is Brandt Ruger(Gene Hackman), his wife, Melissa(..the lovely Candice Bergen). So Ruger assembles a group of his friends as a hunting party to seek after Frank and his outlaws, not knowing until much later that Melissa has become quite attached and affectionate towards her kidnapper. This indeed drives Ruger over the edge and there'll be hell to pay before he's through.I'll be honest, the stale plot isn't earth-shattering, and even though the movie results in a bleak, uncompromising, and tragic manner, it's pretty predictable. But, if you want your fix of bloody violence with plenty of people blown away by long range rifles(..mostly by Hackman, who's a crack shot), then "The Hunting Party" might just be what the doctor ordered. It has plenty of familiar faces. LQ Jones a sleazy scoundrel who, while in a drunken high, attempts to rape Bergen, getting his medicine(..what she doesn't complete, Hackman sure as hell does), with Mitchel Ryan as Reed's compadre, Doc, who is gut shot, but lives on the brink of death for damn near an hour as the group move from territory to territory seeking a town physician to pull the bullet buried inside him.The major problem with this western is that you kind of have no one to really side with. Hackman, understandably so, becomes so bloodthirsty, that he alienates those who accompany him on the quest to find Reed. We don't really spend a great deal of time with him, either, so we have little real time to get to know him all that well. He very well could be a disaster of a husband which might explain why Bergman responds so passionately eventually to Reed. We do recognize a friction between the Rugers, and it's visible how Brandt treats her as a prize no one but can claim, but still, Frank isn't exactly the greatest substitute, now is he? But, that scene where Reed forces himself on Bergman is hard to watch, and, despite the fact she succumbs to his desires, that rape does tarnish any sympathy one might have in his favor.The film seems to side with Reed, though, as Hackman just continues to shoot down his men, picking them off in intervals, and we follow them as they grow more weary, their tempers tested due to the fact that they are dying because of a broad. Simon Oakland(..who I consider to be one of the finest television actors in the history of the small screen, his face recognizable across all genres, particularly in the 60's and 70's, most notably, "Kolchak The Night Stalker") is well cast as Matthew Gunn, attempting to be a voice of reason for Ruger, trying to talk some sense into him, especially after it's realized that Melissa has chosen Frank over Brandt. But, it's obvious that Brandt isn't a man to lose any property that's his to anyone, much less an outlaw whose life has been about stealing and killing. Like a lot westerns coming out in the 70's, I reckon "The Hunting Party" suffered as the genre was starting to wain, it very much an example of "The Wild Bunch" influence.