True Action: Death Hunt

Any Charles Bronson fan worth his salt is at least familiar with Bronson’s 1981 film Death Hunt. In Death Hunt, Bronson plays a trapper in the Yukon by the name of Albert Johnson. Johnson ends up getting into it with a guy named Hazel (Ed Lauter, Death Wish 3) over a dog. Hazel, trying to save face, gets a posse together to go to Johnson’s cabin to get his dog back and teach Johnson a lesson. When the posse opens fire on Johnson’s cabin, one of the members of the posse ends up dead when Albert shoots back in self defense. Now Albert Johnson finds himself wanted by the law… or more specifically by Sgt. Edgar Millen of the Royal Canadian Mounted police (Lee Marvin, The Delta Force).

In addition to Bronson, Lauter and Marvin, Death Hunt features a cast of familiar faces that includes Carl Weathers (Action Jackson) and Andrew Stevens (10 to Midnight), who play the two mounties that report to Sgt. Edgar Millen. Maury Chaykin (Wild Thing) and William Sanderson (Hologram Man) play two members of Hazel’s posse. And last but not least is Angie Dickinson (Big Bad Mama II) who plays the love interest of Edgar Millen and is really there so the movie not a total sausage fest.

The movie is a unique entry in Charles Bronson’s filmography and one that I have enjoyed watching over the years, but one thing I never did was dig in on the true story that the movie was loosely based on. I never did it, until now…

• The True Story:  Albert Johnson was an actual person, although his real name has been disputed over the years. The real life dispute that Johnson was involved in had nothing to do with dog fighting, Johnson was accused of tampering with the traps of another trapper in the area. When two constables from the RCMP went to question Johnson about it, he refused to speak to them. When they returned a few days later with a search warrant, a search warrant that they enforced, a firefight broke out and one of the constables was wounded in the exchange. The RCMP would later return nine men strong with dogs and dynamite in tow. Another firefight broke out and thanks to a fox hole he had dug under his cabin, Johnson managed to survive his cabin being blown to smithereens just like in the movie.

• The Death Hunt: After his cabin was destroyed, Johnson was on the run but this incredible story was now being reported over the wire and in newspapers and it was the press who dubbed Johnson “The Mad Trapper of Rat River”. The hunt for Johnson went on for weeks in some of the roughest conditions possible. The actual Edgar Millen was killed during the hunt when he was shot right through the heart by Johnson. The RCMP got desperate and hired a flying ace from the first World War to hunt Johnson by air… this was actually one of the things I figured the movie had embellished and was surprised to hear was true. The Mounties eventually got their man over a month after their “death hunt” for Johnson had began.

• The Movie: The biggest difference between the movie and the actual events is that both Albert Johnson and Edgar Millen are portrayed as heroes and both men are still alive when the end credits roll. There is never a point where Johnson comes across as a bad guy in the film, he saved a dog from certain death, defended himself and never had any intentions of hurting anyone. They even give Johnson a heroic background saying he was special forces in the war… Millen is the cop trying to do his job, he knows who is right and who is wrong in the scenario, but he has to go by the book and bring Johnson in for questioning. The audience can empathize with the Millen character being in a tough spot… I am also going to go out on a limb here and say there was nobody as cool as Carl Weathers’ character Sun Dog living in the Yukon in 1931/1932. Sun Dog has a lot of fun razzing Andrew Stevens’ rookie character Alvin, especially when it comes to the Native American woman that likes to shack up with Sun Dog on those cold Yukon nights… my favorite line in the movie is when Sun Dog asks Alvin, “You want a piece of this buffalo woman?” That’s movie magic right there!