User Reviews

I watched this on the Encore Western Channel. I didn't expect much going in, based on the description on the channel guide, and the film started off slow, but I found myself more interested as the film went on, and half-expected to find out it was based on a true story.

I am a fan of Frederic Forest, altho in this film he is so quiet and seems almost uncomfortable that it's hard to understand how he could have played such a scary character as Blue Duck a few years later in the "Lonesome Dove" mini-series.

Richard Widmark seems to be having too much fun with his role as Red, a departure from the stoic characters he played for many years, and almost seems to be saying, "I don't care what the other actors do, I'm gonna do what I want."

Widmark's character is unapologetically racist, calling Thomas Black Bull "Chief" from the first time they meet, and telling him, "If it weren't for me, you'd be selling blankets."

Red is all about the money, not the sport or Thomas, and scams all the locals at every rodeo Thomas rides in, only to waste all his profits on booze and women and gambling. Thomas doesn't want to go along with the scams but does because deep down he truly loves Red as a father figure. He gets frustrated and tries a couple of times to rebel but fails because his heart isn't really in it.

The film gets a little choppy after Thomas Black Bull finally makes up his mind to do things his own way and abandons Red at a roadside liquor store. All of a sudden his name is Tom Black and he gets the nickname Killer because he rides the horses so hard they drop dead in the arena. Supposedly he has killed four horses this way but we only see one incident.

Tom starts drinking scotch, smokes a few cigarettes, hooks up with a few women who disappear as quickly as they appear, and starts on his own downhill slide, not from the booze or women but from arrogance.

When he gets thrown one too many times and realizes his arrogance isn't going to get him thru life any more he goes back to Red, who is now reaping the results of his hard-drinking, partying life.

* Spoiler *

Tom is finally freed when Red dies and he has nowhere to go any more, and no-one to turn to.

The ending of the film is abrupt, and the only thing I really didn't like about the film, with Tom going back to the Indian school he hated as a boy, which is now being run by tribal elders instead of the White Man, and says he wants to work with horses.

I found this to be slightly out of character. He had no qualms about letting horses buck themselves to death at rodeos, yet we are now to believe that his love of horses is what has been driving him all this time and the only thing he ever really wanted to do.

* End Spoiler *

All in all, I liked the movie. I don't know if I'd put it on my 10-best list, but the story was interesting, the characters were believable, and if nothing else, Richard Widmark's portrayal of Red is worth your time.

Considering the story, the title of the picture was a little overwrought, don't you think? There really weren't any legends to speak of here. Richard Widmark's character, Red Dillon, who did die at the end of the story was actually a pretty repulsive character after starting out the movie as a good guy. At least he came across that way for taking in Ute Indian Thomas Black Bull (Frederic Forrest) when he was only nineteen and directionless. But things turned sour when Red tried to run a hustle with Tom taking dives at rodeo bronc riding events to set up larger bets with his unsuspecting cowboy pals. It made Red's early advice to Tom (see my summary line) somewhat contradictory, since it was really Red who was in the relationship all for himself.

I've seen and heard it in two older Westerns, but this is the only relatively modern one in which a character uses the term 'red ni--er'. That was when competitive bronc rider Tex Walker (John Gruber) slandered Black Bull for passing on a drink at a local watering hole. Another film I can recall in which the term came up was in 1960's "The Unforgiven" with Burt Lancaster and Audie Murphy; it was used twice in entirely inflammatory situations. Even here, the comment earned a physical response from Red Dillon, who put the abusive Tex down on his butt.

As far as the bronc riding goes, I was impressed with the way the horse went down on Tom in one of his final rides. It looked pretty dramatic and I was wondering how they staged it, so I went back and it looked like stock footage was used from an actual event to match up with the action on screen. It was most likely a real accident filmed at a rodeo and spliced into the picture to make it look like Tom got hurt. In any case, that spill looked awful nasty.

Say, here's something that got my attention. You don't see anything like this today, but old timers like myself will remember when gas stations gave away premiums for buying their product. I can't say I ever got a salad bowl for a three dollar fill-up myself, but those kind of giveaways were out there back in the day. Now the gas goes for three bucks a gallon and you can't afford the fill up.

For his part Frederic Forrest came across kind of stiff in his first significant movie role. Not having a Native American background, he pulled off the part of a Ute Indian relatively well without resorting to stereotype, which must have put him in good stead for the role of vicious Kiowa Indian Blue Duck in 1989's 'Lonesome Dove' series. I thought his character Black Bull in this story could have been a bit more animated on the rodeo circuit, someone should have thought of handing him a Red Bull.

When the Legends Die is a powerful, moving story of an orphaned Ute Indian who goes on to become Tom Black Bull, a champion bronc rider. Raised in the old ways, Tom is given a white man's name and must adopt the language and ways of the white man to live in that world. Bitter about the role he has been forced into, Tom finds fulfillment doing one thing, busting horses, riding them to death, in the rodeo. The movie has Richard Widmark in the role of Red, the man who befriends Tom and acts as his manager. Red is a drunk who eventually dies in the story, which is about where the movie ends. The real story is completely ignored, the dark side of Tom Black Bull who develops a reputation as a killer of horses in the rodeo arenas. Oh well, you should read the book, this movie doesn't come close to doing the story justice.