The Mountain Men

I've got a few more Charlton Heston movies to get through from when he was TCM's Star of the Month last October. One that I hadn't heard of before it showed up last year was The Mountain Men.

If you pay attention to the opening credits, you'll see that the screenplay is by one Fraser Clarke Heston, who is in fact the son of Charlton Heston, and that collaboration may have something to do with why the movie got produced at all. Charlton Heston plays Bill Tyler, a trapper in the days when the Oregon trail was only beginning to become a thing with a miniscule number of people going that far west to farm. It was a time when the white man was still badly outnumbered by the various Indian tribes in the region, and for Bill and his friend Henry (Brian Keith), the Indians in question are Blackfoot and Crow.

One day, Cross Otter, a Crow, and a couple of his companions from the tribe go out looking for Henry and Bill, because the Crow claim the white guys stole their horses. The white guys, for their part, say they're only taking back what had been theirs before the Crow took the horses. This somewhat tense meeting is interrupted by some Blackfoot showing up to start an attack on both groups. In the resulting melee, Bill incapacitates a woman, Running Moon.

Running Moon is the wife of the Blackfoot chief Heavy Eagle, although she's none too happy with the marriage, having been sold into marriage. In fact, that's why she was at the melee: she was trying to run away from Heavy Eagle. She wants Bill to help protect her, but he's only willing to take her to the point where he's supposed to meet the people to whom he's selling his pelts. He's had a squaw accompany him before, and he found her too much work. Never mind that in this case, Heavy Eagle is going to be coming after her. But at the same time, she gives the two trappers information about the legend of a valley that's incredibly rich with beaver pelts. Needless to say, Bill and Henry want to find the place.

Heavy Eagle does in fact find the group, but it is not the climax of the movie, as there's a lot more to go. Running Moon gets taken back by Heavy Eagle (or kidnapped, depending on your point of view), and she vows to escape again. Henry, not being the star, gets badly injured in the attack and may or may not die. Bill is going to have to go through a lot more. Who will survive, and who will end up with whom?

I think it's not hard to see why Charlton Heston would be interested in making this movie, and it's not just because the screenplay was written by his son. The potential is easy to see here. However, at the same time I can see why The Mountain Men isn't a very well-known movie. It doesn't feel all that original, and also feels a bit like a boy's fantasy of the thrilling adventures of life in that era must have been like, instead of the incredibly dangerous grind it most likely was. One big plus is the cinematography, having been filmed in part in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming and the surrounding national forests.

Fans of westerns will probably enjoy The Mountain Men; for people who aren't the biggest fans of westerns I'd introduce them to other parts of the genre first.