Customer Reviews

Buffalo Girls

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Buffalo Girls is one of the best made-for-tv movies from the 1990s and it is a pleasure to have this forever on DVD.

The film stars Anjelica Huston, Melanie Griffith, Peter Coyote, Sam Elliot, Gabriel Byrne, Liev Schrieber, Jack Palance, and Reba McEntire. Even if the film hadn't been as well written as it was, the sheer star power of the film would have carried it through.

Huston plays Calamity Jane expertly with such emotion and understanding of the character. Melanie Griffith was my favorite, however, playing ex-madame Dora DuFran, Calamity's best friend. Her story is an emotional rollercoaster, and Griffith's incredible skills as an actress shine through here. Sitcom star Reba McEntire plays Annie Oakley, and it's a shame that her role in the film is so small. In the 3-hour film, she is maybe in it a total of fifteen minutes. I think Reba is wonderful and it would have been nice to see more of her as Annie. All in all, a great, involving movie that is a joy to experience.

The DVD from Platinum Disc Corporation has no extra features, but luckily presents the movie as it originally aired on TV, in two seperate parts. The earlier VHS release had the two parts edited together into one long movie and had a scene edited out. It's nice to have the Buffalo Girls in it's original form. The picture quality is perfect and the sound is a robust 2-channel stereo track with surround seperation at very appropriate times in the film.

For the low price Amazon is offering this 3-hour DVD at, it is ridiculous not to buy it. Even if you are not a fan of westerns (I certainly am not), it will still keep you entertained!

Ok, so you have to get through some TV movie hokieness to appreciate this movie. At first, I was distracted by the awkward direction, acting, and accents, and the general TV-movieness of it all. But as the movie went on, I was able to overlook those things and started to enjoy it, especially Angelica Huston as Calamity Jane. Some quality about her, a grittiness and strength, seems just right for the role.

Melanie Griffith is not always a favorite of mine, but she has a sweetness that makes her Dora enjoyable. Gabriel Byrne as the lovelorn Blue makes a good match for her. He is suitably and touchingly romantic here, not as much "darkness" to his character as in most roles.

I enjoyed their story, though I was distracted at first by that heavy Texas drawl issuing from Byrne's mouth. It was fine when I got used to it, though it did start me thinking that probably there were a lot of cowboys with Irish, Scandinavian, German and other accents--immigrants. The only reason we think of all cowboys with a Texas drawl is Hollywood.

I also thought the movie shortchanged Indian women a bit. What does Blue's Native American wife think of being married to a white guy who doesn't love her? That's sad for her, and in a movie about women of the Old West, would have been a good angle to the story.

Westerns usually show Indian women as victims or passive prizes for "sympathetic" white men. In reality, Indian women often had much more autonomy and power than European women. The idea of being given as a "prize" to a white men would have been entirely against their culture. (To learn more about Native American women, I recommend the writings of James Alexander Thom, a historical novelist whose wife is Native American.)

On the plus side, I liked the alliance between Calamity and Annie Oakley. So much better than making them enemies. And the story about Jane's daughter was touching, even though I knew it was pure fiction.

This is a good movie to while away a winter weekend. It would also be good for parents looking for good viewing material for pre-teen to young teen girls, even though I have a problem with anything that portrays prostitution as a good career choice for women. The angle is downplayed, though. Enjoyable and recommended.

Angelica Huston rocks in Buffalo Girls, in which she plays Calamity Jane. This movie plays fast and loose with history and fiction, but what good 'true' movie doesn't. A great take on a woman's perspective of the Old West.

i'm twelve years old and i am a fan of Anjelica Huston

i thought the movie was great.Anjelica is so awesome in this movie and if you don't like her in this you have lost your mind.

the movie starts out where Calamity Jane(Anjelica Huston)is entering the army and relizes that she loves this wild cowboy named Bill Hicock(Sam Elliot).later he leaves her pregnant.although she thought it was just so strange since she was much of a tomboy in this movie.her friend Dora has her own troubles to deal with.i also like Lonesome Dove.if you havn't seen that then you should see that as well.Anjelica is in Lonesome Dove too.i didn't think that she was my favorite character in Lonesome Dove.she played Clara Allen.my mom says that when does westerns she's not that good because she doesn't look western.although she was the best in Buffalo Girls.i enjoyed sooooo much!!!!!!so did my mom.i don't think that anyone else could have been Calamity Jane as well as she did.

it is excellent you must see it!!!!

good actors, great story... some good action too... this is great movie to help put together the bits and pieces of the stories you've heard about Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and more. It all may be true history, it may be fictional, it may just be myths mixed with fact, but whatever the case, there's more truth than not in this version of the 1870's

This is a very touching movie about lives at the end of the period known as the "wild west. The acting is done well, well known actors are in the movie. I recommend it to anyone, especially women, who are interested in the old west.

the cast is just great and i'm an Anjelica Huston fan..i'm really 13 years old.but don't tell.i want to be an adult.

In the beginning of the movie Calamity Jane(Anjelica Huston)goes in the army then gets kicked out because--
Her love interest is Wild Bill Hickock(Sam Elliot).

She soon gets involved with him and does "it".Later her friend No Ears,they call him No Ears because he really doesn't have ears.Well anyways her friend No Ears tells her that she's pregnant,but she takes it like it's a very horrible thing.She couldn't belive that she was pregnant so she then is somehow happy,but not really.

Calamity is a very much a tomboy and after she has her baby then she relizes she doesn't know how to take care of the baby and has no where to live.So then she--

Her baby's name is Janey Canory.(that's Calmity's last name)
As she writes her child the letters sunddenly disappear.Weird uhh......

I can't tell you more because i'll ruin it.
it's a good movie,you should see it.
Marlena Grooms

The original version of this movie was great. Huston is superb as Calamity Jane, and Melanie Griffith is a great madame.

But this version has been hacked to death by some uncaring editor. It has lost it's continuity and is very dissappointing.

A good TV film. The main characteristic is typical of TV films or mini-series. It is slightly too slow and it concentrates too much on close up shots of characters or faces, and less on action, vast movements that the TV screen cannot capture. The story itself is based on the life of Bill Hicock and Calamity Jane, and of course Buffalo Bill. You can find them in Cody, South Dakota, with the Buffalo Bill museum, but also the Colt Museum and the Indian village Museum. You can visit the reconstituted western village composed of all cabins and houses recuperated everywhere in the west, and of course the cemetery with the tombs of Bill Hicock and Calamity Jane and a few others. You also have the rodeo ground and the old western saloon where some wild cowboys regularly organize some real true false holdups and gunfights in the street. This film is a commemoration of this period when the wild west turned into the not so wild west and pretty soon the no longer wild west. The film is trying to show this period and these characters from inside their psyches and it is pretty sure not to become over-sentimental. But it provides us with a picture of that wild west that is rather interesting and definitely human. The other side of the traditional western films with the guns, the fights, and the dishonest settlers or exploiters of settlers. And it is good to have that other vision, particularly with the women, and why they came to the west. But also the nostalgia that inhabited the minds of the pioneers, the trappers, the hunters and also, but far behind in this film, the Indians who were seeing a mode of living, a life style disappearing, and themselves along with it. The shortcoming at this level is that it did not explain enough the new world that was coming out of it, that was emerging.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

THis movie had hundreds of extras and was filmed in New Mexico. The local extras brought a realism to the story line just with their presence.
Way to go NM Extras!