The Last Hunt, an awesome film ABOUT the buffalo hunts!

[hankbob]

To my knowledge "The Last Hunt (1956)" is the only feature film strictly about the buffalo hunts of the 1870s-80s. There are others that FEATURE buffalo hunting as one aspect (Wyatt Earp, How The West Was Won) but not as a theme or storyline unto itself. The film is very well done for it's time. They took pains to bring out historical and contextual details. They set the time period as Montana in 1883 (it is mentioned to be 7 years after Custer's death), the last year of the great hunts. Firearms are correct; an 1874 Sharps and an 1876 Winchester Centennial model (probably in .45-60, which was enough to bring down a buffalo.) Hunting, skinning and cartridge reloading processes are shown and/or explained. The shopping for supplies was dead on. Our hero Sandy orders a case of skinning knives, not just one or two. They wear out fast! Someone did their homework for this one. Curiously, there has not been a movie about the buffalo hunts since then. I don't know why. I hope that will change soon.  I would love to see Elmer Kelton's "Buffalo Wagons" brought to the big screen!

Henry B. Crawford
Curator of History
Museum of Texas Tech University