Set in the Montana wilderness of the 19th century, "Winterhawk" relates the story of the title character (Michael Dante), a mythical warrior of the Blackfoot people. Despite his feelings towards the white man, he realizes that he will have to ask for their help when smallpox starts to decimate his tribe. He goes to a community with the intention of a trade so that he can obtain needed medicine. But two of the guys in this community are the patently awful Gates (L. Q. Jones) and Scoby (Dennis Fimple), and they merely mock and assault Winterhawk and his fellow emissaries.
In retaliation, Winterhawk kidnaps lovely young Clayanna (Dawn Wells) and her younger brother Cotton (Chuck Pierce, Jr., the son of director Charles B. Pierce), and takes them on a very long journey North. They are followed by community members Big Rude (Woody Strode), Arkansas (Denver Pyle), and Little Smith (Jimmy Clem, a Pierce regular), as well as sullen loner Guthrie (Leif Erickson), who's always been a friend to people like Winterhawk.
This is pretty good, overall. It attempts to be epic in scope, spanning months and seasons, and it's the winter scenes that are the best. As befitting Pierces' style, there is time for some comedy touches, but he treats his Indian characters with dignity, and it's worth noting that not only was he doing his part in keeping the Western genre alive during this time, but he was also taking the time to tell stories that revolved around Indian people.
Overall, despite some very nice scenery and excellent music by Lee Holdridge (as well as a catchy theme song), Pierces' subsequent film "Grayeagle" is superior. For one thing, although he doesn't do a bad job, Dante is not as imposing or commanding a presence as Alex Cord is in that other film. But he's surrounded by such a top bunch of character actors that this picture is still quite watchable. (Strode, playing a strong / silent type, tends to be rather wasted until late in the story.) Also appearing are ever-welcome faces like Elisha Cook, Jr., Arthur Hunnicutt, and the notorious Sacheen Littlefeather as Guthries' young wife. Fimple and especially Jones play jerks so loathsome that you wait patiently for their hoped-for comeuppance.
This viewer could have done without the narration that came across to him as rather pretentious, but "Winterhawk" is still a reasonably engrossing story from writer / producer / director Pierce. Strodes' son Kalai Strode also contributed to the script, uncredited.
Seven out of 10.
