with Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson is on AMC, anyone else watching??

Must be Bronson night, looks like Death Wish and Death Wish II are on after.

Yep.  Great flick

Death hunt and Jeramiah Johnson are two movies I just can't get enough of!!  The background scenery is enough to get you every time(the Edge is quite close runner up)!

The rifles used in the Death Hunt from lee Marvins 40/30 graig to Bronsons model 99 savage,and all the other real cool era guns just make your mouth water(did I mention Angee Dickinson)!!!!

Great movie!!!!


Bob

I enjoy each movie.

death hunt is based on a real story. I have a short book about it. The quote in bold isn't from the book.

In real life albert johnson wasn't considered a good guy who was only minding his business.
He was an odd and quiet person of uncommon strength and endurance, who moved into the rat river area of the yukon and built a very small cabin, and was supossedly going around and tripping other people's traps in the region.
His cabin was approached by the real edgar millan and a few other mounties and he never said a word only open fired on them. He had them pinned down with all the firepower he had and he was dug in as the character was in the movie.
He managed to escape the cabin without them knowing it and eventually killed edgar millan in a shootout in a boulder field.
He was then pursued by a big posse as in the movie, and he toyed with them for days, a few times circling them and passing them from the side and watching them go by as they tracked him.
He also scaled a mountain pass in winter conditions that they didn't think was possible eluding them.
There was also an airplane in real life but they really did cooperate through the ground and air.
Johnson was killed in the middle of the frozen eagle river in a shootout, taking many shots while still returning fire before eventually passing away.
His fatal mistake had been watching the posse through binoculars from a distance, and thinking they were going opposite direction from him when they were really headed right at him. the airplane spotted him and held him in place and they were able to close in on him.

Albert Johnson’s arrival in Fort MacPherson, July 9th 1931 on the southern edge of the Mackenzie delta (67  degrees N latitude) was by all accounts non-eventful. He was approximately 35 years of age, a very taciturn individual with cold blue eyes coupled with a stocky muscular build. These physical characteristics in men that trapped for a living in the north were nothing out of the ordinary.

What the local people considered strange, however, was the fact that Albert did not bother to obtain a trapping license even though he built an 8' X 10' cabin with a good view on 3 sides in a prime trapping location on the Rat River.

With the trapping season in full swing by early December 1931 some of Albert's neighbours began having someone disrupt their traps. The only change from last season to this one - was Albert Johnson. On Dec. 31 Constable Alfred 'Buns' King and Special Constable Joe Bernard, each of whom had considerable northern experience, decided to call on Johnson to investigate. When they approached his cabin they noticed smoke billowing up from the chimney giving the impression that he was in the cabin. But Albert wasn’t in a talking mood.

After numerous attempts to strike up a conversation in 40 below temperatures and getting nowhere with a man holed up with a gun, they decided to return to Aklavik to get reinforcements.

They returned with 2 more Mounties plus one civilian. After the initial knock on the door and without, warning suddenly a shot rang out wounding Constable King. A hasty retreat and a 20 hour dog sled ride back to Aklavik saved the life of the Constable.

On Jan 4, 1932, with 9 men, 42 dogs and 40 pounds of dynamite, a posse was determined to bring this fugitive in. Once their positions were secure on the cabin perimeter, the dynamite was thawed out by holding it under their coats close to their bodies.

The dynamite was thrown into the structure and a massive explosion ripped the roof clean off with one of the walls caving in.

As the Mounties entered the cabin to remove the corpse, Johnson stood up from a fox hole he dug firing 2 weapons narrowly missing both officers. A hasty retreat was in order again. After a 15 hr siege and food starting to run low they returned to Aklavik to contemplate their next move.

While all this was going on people in the rest of the continent were fixed to their radios listening to the first live reporting of a RCMP manhunt in Canada's north as it occurred. The whole affair was now dubbed the Mad Trapper of Rat River.

A third patrol was dispatched on Jan 14. But this time Johnson had fled his cabin fortress. For 2 weeks in near 50 below zero weather and 2 blizzards Johnson evaded his captures.

On Jan 30th he was confronted once more. After a short shootout, Constable 'Spike' Millen lay dead - shot through the heart. Johnson made his escape by climbing a shear cliff in the dead of night.

Albert Johnson seemed to be no average trapper. The Mounties said of him to be capable of great feats and crafty beyond belief. The local Inuit said at one point in the chase that Johnson could snowshoe 2 miles for every 1 mile a dog team had to break trail.

Johnson had been back tracking in ever larger circles for the past month to evade capture. At this time hundreds of men were now tracking him. He had guns but could not use them to hunt for food - they would give away his position. He had means to light a fire to cook what food he could snare but the fire again would aid his pursuers. He also had to build shelters in snow drifts, surely his clothes must have started to get wet from perspiration and/or the elements.

When and where could he build a fire large enough to dry his clothes out or eat properly to help ward off the effects of 50 below zero weather? A tantalizing question.

Now Johnson's greatest feat was about to happen. Johnson could see that the Arctic Red River district was becoming to difficult to manage. His only escape was traverse the Richardson mountains and head into the high country of the northern Yukon. The Mounties had already closed the door on that idea by guarding the only 2 passes through this range. But the quick thinking Johnson pulled another fast one on the Mounties.

During a raging blizzard he climbed over these 7,000 ft mountains with very little food and no climbing gear. With visibility during the blizzard at near zero, trying to cling to sheer cliffs of slippery ice and numbing cold, the mountain men of the area told the Mounties it would be impossible to do at this time of the year even with the proper gear and food.

A native trapper traveling through one of the guarded passes told of strange tracks on the upper reaches of the Eagle River, Yukon. Assuming that this could be Johnson on the other side of mountains, the Mounties knew they were no match in overtaking this fugitive.

In a Canadian first, on Feb 7, 1932 a monoplane piloted by W.R. (Wop) May was pressed into service to aid in the search to finally corner Johnson.

On February 17, 1932 May directed the Mounties to a hairpin turn in the middle section of the Eagle River where a gun battle eventually brought Johnson down. It took 9 bullets to Johnson's body to finally end this 5 week ordeal.

Where did he come from (his finger prints were no help)? No family member ever claimed the body. Before entering the Arctic River area no one had ever heard of him. During the entire man hunt the Mounties never heard him speak a word. And yet he had over $2,000 in cash and some placer gold in his possession.

The story of Albert Johnson is truly a Canadian Mystery that still beckons to be solved.

" Death Hunt " is a great movie. Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson & old guns it doesn't get much better !

The only part they really messed up is when CB jumps across the gully you can clearly see a Highway embankment and guard rail in the near background that they didn't even try to camoflage or hide..

Thanks for posting the true story.  This is a favotite movie of mine, too

Barkley-addict,
What is the name of the book?

Quoted: In a Canadian first, on Feb 7, 1932 a monoplane piloted by W.R. (Wop) May was pressed into service to aid in the search to finally corner Johnson.

I would assume that this was the same Canadian Lieutenant Wilfred "Wop" May that was being shot at by  Manfred von Richthofen when Richthofen was shot down????

I watched it great movie.

damn i thought it was another in the death wish series!

I watched part of it.  Love those old firearms.

When I was a kid, we had a repro of the 1902 Sears catalog.  I've always been a gun nut, so I used to make up a mission and equip for it using the catalog.

Later I read some of the Skeeter Skelton stories about being a Texas Ranger on the boarder.  IIRC, he used the Winchester 1907, among other things.  Anyone know if there is a compilation of his writings?

Not certain the book but it's really short and thin for a book, more of a booklet, but very interesting. I ordered it from some antique book store 2 years ago and it was  used, it's upstairs somewhere.

I typed in mad trapper at amazon though and it shows a few books, some of them i've never seen, gonna have to buy another.

read the reviews though, it seems some are more novels with some fiction, and some are more about facts about the real story.

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/002-2412046-6640032?url=index%3Dblended&field-keywords=mad+trapper&Go.x=3&Go.y=15

the real albert johnson k.i.a.



I think the pilot is that wop

Quoted: Death hunt and Jeramiah Johnson are two movies I just can't get enough of!!  The background scenery is enough to get you every time(the Edge is quite close runner up)! The rifles used in the Death Hunt from lee Marvins 40/30 graig to Bronsons model 99 savage,and all the other real cool era guns just make your mouth water(did I mention Angee Dickinson)!!!! Great movie!!!! Bob

Skin that 'un pilgrim and I'll bring you another!

BigDozer66

Later I read some of the Skeeter Skelton stories about being a Texas Ranger on the boarder. IIRC, he used the Winchester 1907, among other things. Anyone know if there is a compilation of his writings?

Essayons, check out the following link for some Skelton books:
http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?S=R&qwork=5991857&qsort=p&siteID=KLVmR9fE2yU-GIcqjT0_9xugm7HYLoXrTg

Michael

Quoted: Essayons, check out the following link for some Skelton books: http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?S=R&qwork=5991857&qsort=p&siteID=KLVmR9fE2yU-GIcqjT0_9xugm7HYLoXrTg Michael

Thanks mrstand01.  I seem to be developing a taste for expensive out of print gun books.  I just dropped $56 on Collector's Grade Publications' SPIW: The Deadliest Weapon That Never Was and a little less than $50 on their M14 book (I wanted the whole 3-volume small arms set).  I'll keep my eye our for an good deal on Selected Works of Skeeter Skelton Vols I and II.