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The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Joe Bass" (Burt Lancaster) is a trapper who has just finished his winter occupation and is heading back east to trade in his furs. Unfortunately, he encounters some semi-friendly Kiowa and they demand his furs in exchange for a black slave named "Joseph Lee" (Ossie Davis). Although Joe Bass doesn't want or need a slave, he has no choice but to allow the trade to transpire since the Kiowa outnumber him 12 to 1. But as they ride off he is determined to get his furs back one way or the other. Meanwhile, the Kiowa fall prey to a band of savage scalphunters who end up taking the furs after killing the Kiowa. So Joe Bass now has a different adversary to retrieve his furs from. Anyway, filmed in 1968 this movie has a not-too-subtle "message" about racism the director (Sydney Pollack) felt compelled to impart. No doubt that decision probably delighted the politically-correct critics during this time. However, regardless of how well-intentioned the motives may have been it was a bit too blatant in my opinion and detracted from the entertainment value this movie may have had. Along with that, the humor just wasn't that funny. Additionally, I thought Shelley Winters (as "Kate") was miscast for her part and neither Burt Lancaster nor Telly Savalas (as "Jim Howie") seemed to fulfill their potential. That said, for all of these reasons the movie seemed rather flat and lackluster to me. In short, it could have been better.

This is a pretty good movie that is worth watching. The acting is excellent, with nice performances by Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis, Shelly Winters and Telly Savalas.Burt Lancaster seemed to particularly enjoy his role. Ossie Davis really holds the movie together. Shelly Winters is hilarious and Salavas does a very creditable job.I only had a couple of issues with the movie:The title "The Scalphunters" is beyond ridiculous. This is a comedy, and a pretty good and subtle one.At the beginning of the movie, a gang of twenty white men on horses ambush a group of ten or so drunken Indians, whom they brutally gun down and graphically scalp. This was such an intense and horrifying scene that I didn't realize until half way through the movie is actually a comedy.Other user reviewers on this site pointed out the anachronism of the repeating rifles. Because Ossie Davis' character is a slave, the movie must be set in the pre-Civil War period, when there were no repeating rifles. Lancaster's trapper character is well cast for the pre-Civil War west, but I'm not sure about Salavas' criminal gang. They claim the "territory" has set a bounty of $25 per Indian scalp. I'm not sure if any U.S. territory ever did that. I know the Mexican government did. They are on their way to Mexico. Maybe this is why. They claim to in the business of bank robbing, but I don't think there were ever many banks in the areas that fur trappers operated. Overall, I was confused by the historical context.

"The Scalphunters," made in 1968, is director Sydney Pollack's meditation on property, black power, and the amorality of whiskey and sex, and a kind of buddy picture or screwball comedy, told through the guise of a traditional western. Set in 1860 somewhere outside the territory of the United States, it might have been called "How the Runaway Slave Joseph Lee Got His Fists Back" or "The Furry Treasure of Sierra Madre." It's a Pollack picture, so it's genial, good-natured, entertaining, and only a little improbable, and the good guys endure to fight another day. Burt Lancaster grabs the viewer's attention as always, even though the role of a trapper intent on keeping his furs doesn't offer him much breadth here. Telly Savalis, Shelly Winters, and Ossie Davis are all enjoyable, if a bit campy, as a Kansas bank robber, a star-gazing strumpet, and a Latin-quoting runaway respectively. There are Indian attacks, showdowns, and shootouts enough for a John Ford western. The film has aged well.

The Scalphunters was the first of two films Sydney Pollack directed with Burt Lancaster. In fact according to a recent biography of Lancaster, Burt was literally trying Pollack out on this western before giving him an opportunity to direct the very expensive Castle Keep for him the following year. Personally I think The Scalphunters is a far better film.It's a rollicking good mixture of comedy with some very serious themes involved. It's also the last time Lancaster did any really athletic roles as he was 55 when making The Scalphunters. We all bow to old age at some point.Sydney Pollack actually started his association with Burt Lancaster on the set of The Young Savages where he was an acting coach to some of the street kids who were playing gang members. It was his first introduction into motion pictures, he had previously directed and acted in a number of television productions.Burt is fur trapper Joe Bass who gets an offer from the Kiowa Indians he can't refuse. They'll relieve him of his year's trappings in beaver pelts and he'll get an educated house slave in Ossie Davis. Davis seems born to be a slave, he escapes it from the south, then he's captured by the Comanches who then trade him to the Kiowas and then he's forced on Lancaster. Lancaster is planning to get his pelts back, but a murderous gang of Scalphunters beat him to it and massacre almost the whole band and take Lancaster's furs along with horses and scalps that bring a good bounty. Burt's Joe Bass is not exactly a boy scout, but this crowd truly nauseates him.The Scalphunters are headed by Telly Savalas and his cigar smoking refugee from a bordello of a woman, Shelley Winters. Winters has the best performance in the film, this is her third film with Lancaster with whom she had a self documented fling back in the day. Later on Davis gets captured by The Scalphunters and he has to use his wits to survive among them. But they're going to Mexico where slavery has been abolished.The laughs are mixed in with some serious racial issues all around. Lancaster can't quite accept Davis as an equal, Davis is perfectly willing to go along with The Scalphunters and their genocidal war on the Indians if he'll obtain his freedom through them. And Savalas and his crowd are as mean a bunch as you'll ever see in a film, yet some of the funniest bits in the film involve Winters and Savalas.The Scalphunters is a really funny western that if you think about it teaches some good lessons we could all use.