Miniseries TV Movie Review: **** The Sacketts (1979)

Three brothers head west for their individual reasons, Tell, Orrin and Tyrel Sackett (Sam Elliott, Tom Selleck and Jeff Osterhage).   Orrin and Tyrel get in the cattle business while Tell seeks gold.  Tell accuses a gambler of cheating and the gambler draws on him and kills him, Wes Bigelow (James Gammon).  Consequently the Bigelow brothers, Ira, Benson and Jack (Jack Elam, Gene Evans and Slim Pickens) are all after Tell.  Tell has a partner, Cap (Ben Johnson) who was on a cattle drive with Orrin and Tyrel.  They find gold, and find a young woman, Ange Kerry (Wendy Rastattar) who has been living in the mine for a couple years since her father died.  

After the cattle drive Orrin and Tyrel go after abandoned cattle in the mountains with a former lawyer, gunslinger Tom Sunday (Glen Ford).  The are near Santa Fe where there is a young woman (Ana Alisia) who attracts Tyrel, and another golden haired woman who attracts Orrin.  Her father is Jonathan Pritts (John Vernon) who hopes to control Santa Fe now that it is part of the United States.  He hires gunmen to assert his claim.  The Mexicans are being bullied.  They decide to hold an election for sheriff hoping they can assert their rights instead of being bullied by Pritts.  Orrin and Sunday run, and when Orrin wins Sunday becomes bitter.  He eventually decides to kill Orrin, and Tyrel has to stop him.  Pritts attempts to hire a murder and this is divulged and he is arrested.

In the meantime the Bigelows and their hired men have Tell, Cap and the girl cornered in their mine.  The girl gets away on a horse of the Bigelows, head to town and sends telegram to the brothers in Santa Fe. The Bigelows did not catch up with Orrin, and decided to wait for him in town.   Consequently we have a big gun battle to end the show.  This is a Louis L'Amour book and he is the narrator.  

Movie Review: ***^White Buffalo (1977)

This movie stars Charles Bronson as Bill Hickok and Will Sampson as Crazy Horse.  However they are both keeping their names hush hush; Hickok because of his part, and Crazy Horse because he is told not to use his name until he kills the white buffalo.  Part of this movie were not very well done, including the White Buffalo attack of the Indian village that killed Cray Horse's child.  Even Tony noticed that.  It was flashes of the buffalo and then blood.  However is is because of this incident Crazy Horse is given his task of killing the white buffalo and his name is changed to "worm" until he does so.  At the same time, Hickok has ben seeing the white buffalo in his dreams.  Hickok if joined by his friend, Charlie Zane (Jack Warden). 
There are also several cameos: Slim Pickens as the stage coach driver, John Carradine as the undertaker, Kim Novak as the female interest and Clint Walker as the man who wants to kill Hickok.
However this movie is more than three men chasing a white buffalo, which can cause earthquakes and avalanches.  It turns out in the end to be about relationships, and personal growth, for both Crazy Horse and Hickok.  Zane, the old timer, does not go along, and in the end Hickok loses a friend in Zane and gains one in Crazy Horse.