>How's this for an exotic setting? Call it frontier
noir, or maybe
>hardboiled buckskin. Just caught Jeremiah Johnson on
PBS, and I figure it's
>a pretty hardboiled tale, despite the fact it takes
place in the Rockies
>about 150 years ago or so. It's about this guy,
ex-soldier (played by
>Robert Redford, who actually does a decent job),
disgusted with what he
>sees as a failed society, who decides to chuck it all
and become a mountain
>man, only to find that violence and killing isn't that
easy to escape from.
The movie "Jeremiah Johnson" and one of the books the movie
was based on
("Crow Killer: The Story of Liver Eatin' Johnson") were
described by one
fellow as "tame" and "politically correct" versions of the
real-life
John Johnson (Johnston), which accounts for its success.
Truth sometimes
comes boiled a little longer than is palatable to the average
taste.
Johnston, however, denied ever having taken an Indian squaw
or eating
human livers. Of course, he was sheriff of some Wyoming town
at the time
and might have feared retribution in the voting booth. The
book is more
interesting than the movie.
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