Monday, February 16, 2009

The Adventures of Buffalo Bill


Les aventures de Buffalo Bill – French title
The Adventures of Buffalo Bill – English title

A 1909 French production [Safety Bioscope Co. (Paris)]
Director: Joë Hamman (Jean Hamman)
Screenplay: William F. Cody (William Frederick Cody)
Cinematography: [black & white]
Running time: 10 minutes

Story: 5 part film series.

Cast:
Buffalo Bill - Joë Hamman (Jean Hamman)


Joë Hamman, a Frenchman, had gone to the United States when he was 17 and lived on an Indian Reservation. Hamman joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and returned with the show to France. Joe decided to remain in his homeland and made a series of westerns filmed in the Camargue region. Using the cattle and horse ranches of his friend Folco de Baroncelli, he invited the American Indians from Buffalo Bill’s show to partake in several of his films, one of which was the five part film series of “The Adventures of Buffalo Bill”.

2 comments:

  1. I have no problem taking the time to post about this.So joe was arizona bill and buffalo bill also.A noble red man from the real buffalo show if he was forty five years old in 1909 could easily have rode the warpath as a youth back in the late 1870's.These could have contained real indians that killed real white men and no revisionist western today with painstaking attention to authentic accuracy will ever have that.Boy I would like to see these.

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  2. You and me both Raymie. Hamman made over 50 of these shorts from 1907 to 1921. I've seen one or two advertised as being shown at European Film Fesitvals over the years, but I'm sure the bulk of them are long gone. It's one thing to play a cowboy on film it's another being real cowboy being filmed.

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