Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review 1981 movie, "Death Hunt"

Saw this a long time ago and watched it again on a movie channel a couple of nights ago. Fictionalized account of the "Mad Trapper of Rat River" incident in 1931 Canada.

Good people in it: Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Angie Dickenson, Ed Lauter (great bad guy). "Action" movie with lots of violence. Looks like they got the guns right for the time. Maybe because I'm getting old but IMO better than most "action" movies today.

One of my favorite movies of all time.

I recently watched it again as I've managed to score a copy on BluRay from Amazon.

That is a very good movie.

You forgot to mention Carl Weathers & the buffalo woman.

Great movie!

They filmed that movie around Banff Alberta and I just happened to be around town at the time. I met quit a few extras from the movie. They said Charles was a real arrogant guy while Lee Marvin was just one of the boys and like to swill back beers in the Banff Springs Hotel.

I have also spent quite a bit of time in the Yukon and read a learned lots of information about the Mad Trapper. Quite a guy. Even after forensics they still have no idea who the guy was. I even spoke to a native guy from Aklavik, NWT who's relatives where in on the chase claim most of the accounts on how the story actually started are false. They claim it was all over a woman. Imagine that !

Dog_River

DR, I read some about that guy.. And saw the movie.. Any really good biographies about him??

Back in the olden days when I was in the service and on the east coast some of the guys around me went to the Big Apple and were having a beer at some pub/bar. Lee Marvin came in and bought drinks for everyone. The announcer for Johnny Carson (Ed McMahon) used to do that, too.

Heard the same about Charles Bronson from a relative who lived near him and ran into him at a grocery store.

great movie just watched it last weekend

Back in the mid-70's and then again in the mid-80's, before and after my stint in the Army, I rode dirt bikes with Mr. Bronson a couple of dozen times when he was at his home in Vermont. I didn't know him well, just enough to say hello, but he was always polite when I was around him. More than once, I recall that while we were stopped at some small country store getting gas and a soft drink, somebody would tell him that he looked a lot like Charles Bronson and he would reply, in a very deadpan manner/tone, that he got that a lot. He was always just one of the guys, not the least bit arrogant, when I was around him.

43Shooter;
Good evening to you sir, I trust this finds you well.

It's been an awfully long time since I watched Death Hunt and even longer since I looked at the firearms taken from the Rat River Trapper which were on display at the RCMP Museum in Regina back in the day.

Going off of foggy memory the rifle was a .30-30 in a Savage 99, a sawed off single shot shotgun - Iver Johnson type - maybe 16 guage??? and a .22 rifle I think. The movie got those details close to correct anyway.

The RCMP would have had full wood Mk III SMLE's most likely at that time - not the "sporterized" ones shown in the movie, but at least they did have some SMLE's in the movie.

My late father was born in 1920 and clearly recalled hearing about the progress of the hunt on the radio when he was a boy on the Saskatchewan prairie.

Then too another interesting connection was that the plane that Wop May used to spot him was found and purchased in the late '60's or early '70's by the son-in-law of my elementary school principal. He was an interesting chap in and of himself as he'd flown a whole lot of missions with the RCAF over Europe. I have no clue where or if the plane still exists anymore.

Lastly, when we bought a house in a small BC town in '87, I casually knew an old retired RCMP officer who lived down the street - just enough to say hello and exchange pleasantries really.

Anyway after he passed I found out that he was the last remaining RCMP officer who'd been in on the hunt for the mysterious fellow.

Oh, really and truly lastly - they dug the Mad Trapper up a few years back and did some tests on him to see if he was related to a family on Vancouver Island who thought it might be a great uncle who'd vanished about that time.

As it turned out, the man in question grew up in the mid west of the US - something about how much corn he'd eaten while growing up?

Thanks kindly for twigging the memories tonight sir, all the best to you and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall.

Dwayne

albert Johnson wuz his name. fled up north after a manslaughter wrap against him got nixed - but some revengers wouldn't let it go.

Wikipedia's got a pretty good write up on this with considerable detail/speculation on who Albert Johnson really was with possible AKAs, etc.

There's a photo of what was supposed to be the blown up cabin and photos of him after his death. He did dig a trench in the cabin as in the movie, survived the explosion and continued fighting from it after the explosion.

During the chase unlike the movie he shot and killed Edgar Millen (Lee Marvin's part) and during the final gunfight before he was killed he severely wounded another RCMP officer who survived.

According to wikipedia it seems there was never any real proof that he committed the crime the initial warrant was issued for.