Of Crows, Liver and the Mythology of the Mountains

Of Crows, Liver and the Mythology of the Mountains

In April of 1968, Sidney Beckerman (who would go on to be the executive producer on "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension")

acquired the film rights to the novel "Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson" by Raymond W. Thorp jr. & Robert Bunker.

The book chronicled the exploits of the mountain man John “Liver-Eating” Johnson

- and in particular the period of his one man war with the Crow Indians. He was said to have been ambushed by a group of Blackfoot warriors and sold to the Crow. Highly dubious accounts have him escaping from the Crow after attacking and killing his guard - sawing off a leg for later nourishment, and fleeing into the woods.

[1] Most People attribute this to the so-called “Kentucky Cannibal” - Levi Boone Helm.

This incident sparked a war of vendetta that lasted 25 years - in which he is believed to have eaten the livers of his adversaries, before finally making peace.

Johnson eventually died in 1900 and was buried in Los Angeles. In June 1974, after a six-month campaign led by 25 seventh grade students and their teacher, Johnson's body was relocated to Cody, Wyoming.

In May of 1970, Warner Bros. bought the rights and John Milius (seen below sandwiched between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas) began to adapt it for the screen.

Milius combined the source material with another novel - "Mountain Man: A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West" by Vardis Fisher.

Vardis Fisher (March 31, 1895 – July 9, 1968) was a writer best known for his popular historical novels of the Old West.

Vardis Fisher was a bit of a mountain man himself, and one of his hobbies was house construction. He built his home in the Hagerman Valley, now part of Thousand Springs State Park.

Milius says he got the script's idiom and American spirit from Carl Sandburg and was also influenced by the Charles Portis novel "True Grit".

The role of Jeremiah Johnson was originally to be played by Lee Marvin and then Clint Eastwood, (seen below with Paul Newman…

who incidentally would go on to star with Robert Redford in “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid”)

… with Sam Peckinpah attached to direct.

However, tensions between Peckinpah and Eastwood caused Peckinpah to leave the project. Eastwood went on to star in Dirty Harry - another script in which John Milius had a heavy hand. This eventually paved the way for Robert Redford to get the starring role with Sydney Pollack attached to direct.

In December 21, 1972 the film “Jeremiah Johnson” was released 72 years after the death of John “Liver-Eating” Johnson.

It was the first film I showed my wife Gina when we met. 

BTW, Will Geer (Bear Claw in the film) - a formerly blacklisted actor...

... met Woody Guthrie in Tijuana and the two lived together during the writing of many of Guthrie's best known songs - but that's another story.

As is the tale of Hugh Glass.