Buffalo Girls (1995) User Reviews

Decent By Television Standards

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 22 December 2016]

Wild. Untamed. Legendary. Buffalo Girls celebrates the bold escapades of tough-talking Calamity Jane Canary and her illustrious cohorts. It's the waning days of the Wild West and Jane, the rough 'n' rugged cowgirl, is searching not only for her long-lost daughter, but the Wild West she once knew.

This movie would probably never have come my way, except that when reading an interview with Tracey Walter, he praised this film highly, suggesting and implying that it was his favorite role. That really made an impression on me, and therefore I picked it up.

I feel mixed. On the one hand, the casting is amazing. For a television film, it has some really big names and that is impressive. I was also surprised how faithful it was to the historical record, including Calamity Jane's daughter. The costumes are a bit silly (especially the wigs) and the dialogue is not as strong as it could be, but overall this is a fairly decent movie.

Not historical but very entertaining!!

[belva0308 · 7/10 · 26 June 2018]

This movie pulls out the two sides of me. On one hand it is entertaining. On the other hand, it is nearly completely historically inaccurate. Wild Bill, Calamity Jane, Dora Dufran, Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull were all real people. There are some portions of this movie that are as close to historically truthful as they can be. If I am being honest, no one really knows the whole truth about these famous people. My love for stories of the old west and the people in them makes this an entertaining show to me. The acting is very good and the sets interesting if again, looking nothing like the actual Deadwood and Black Hills. If you are going to watch this show, watch it for the love of Westerns and a decent story, not for the history that you can learn. Enjoy it purely for enjoyments sake.

Wonderful

[bootsnspurs · 16 November 2001]

I missed it's original release on television. This was a great find in the video store. They should have made it for the big screen. Fun, entertaining and refreshing. Congratulations to the actors and the filmmakers on a making such a wonderful movie. Well done!

Just watched Buffalo Girls

[beastwarsfan · 10/10 · 25 January 2006]

Here goes my passion for westerns :) I just watched "Buffalo Girls". To be honest, at the beginning I was reserved - western with women, huh... It's like prejudice. The one and only western with a woman main character I really love is "Cat Ballou" with Jane Fonda. Well, there are two such westerns now. You know, Buffalo Girls is one of those movies that come as a pleasant surprise. Anjelica Huston is Calamity Jane, Melanie Griffith is Dora DuFran. They both are doing very good job with their characters. And the support actors are just great. Jack Palance and Tracey Walter as two good old friends, simple people with simple naive dreams. Both actors I know since I was a kid and my dad took me to watch Tim Burton's "Batman". Jack Palance is one great actor, I enjoy his mere presence in movies. Tracey Walter's character is probably my favorite character in the movie. Peter Coyote, Keys from E.T. is also here. Charlayne Woodard makes a very good appearance. And of course Red Crow - this man just inspires. I've seen him in "Dances with Wolves", "Dreamkeeper" and "Hidalgo" (three great movies in my opinion), but I was really surprised to find out that he has done some voice acting for "Captain Planet and the Planeteers". "Buffalo Girls" is really good movie. After the end I felt that feeling that usually comes with western movies - pride, loneliness, nostalgia... Like I belong there in the praerie. Watching the sunset, listening to Willie Nelson and thinking "Those were the days..."

Angelica... how could you!

[paul-toner · 3/10 · 20 November 2006]

I watched 'Buffalo Girls' because of the Larry McMurtry 'Lonesome Dove' connection. With a cast of the calibre of this offering this TV movie could have been remarkable, but this books' translation to the screen just kept making me wince. Everyone in this sadly average offering seemed to be working on auto pilot and I can only put it down to schmaltzy dialogue that followed the letter of the novel but not the spirit.

I've seen Angelica Houston in a lot of things and enjoyed her in every one.... except this one. I wish I'd never seen it.

Sorry

Good entertainment

[Dr. Who · 10/10 · 9 August 1998]

A well done TV movie. It was a pleasure to watch with a good script. I enjoyed it so much I rented it on video so I could watch it again. It has good character interaction and the viewer is lead to feel part of the movie.

Brilliant

[selffamily · 10/10 · 5 January 2021]

I have seen this several times over the past 20 years and every time it just gets better. The acting is superb and the feeling is thar you are watching a bunch of mates living their extraordinary lives. Very, very good (I am not a western fan)

Well done, but too nostalgic though

[Dr_Coulardeau · 9/10 · 12 September 2007]

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

Nice Script Out of a Sprawling book

[HalfCentury · 27 April 2007]

Impressive script that gets the gist out of a big book and renders a lot of the main plot points with simple scenes. Favotites were the simple way they presented the gift of NoEars with his wax ears from Calamity. In the book I believe that was all NoEars initiative that made that happen. But this is a movie and Calamity giving that gift made it very touching. Jim Rag's love of beaver is also very simply portrayed. And I guess it is really ultimately smart to deviate completely from the main revelation of the book. Now this is really a spoiler for the book but I want you warned. Do not proceed if you haven't read the book because it is a great book. Calamity Jane in the movie is an actual mother with a child she will meet in heart wrenching scenes. In the book, most of the story is told with letters to "Janey". Letters to Janey are just a way for sad Calamity Jane to talk to someone that she feels would understand her. Janey never was. At the end, sad Calamity Jane has no one and we learn she has created this imaginary daughter and an imaginary romance with Wild Bill. A hard thing to put over with the same emotional depth the movie gets with an actual daughter. That bugged me a bit, but I got over it. It's no Lonesome Dove but it's a great film of characters that are shaped by their common love of the early American adventure.

Beautiful epic

[signlady · 10/10 · 20 January 2022]

This is an amazing movie. The only reason the IMDb rating is 6.7 is because this TV movie is such a secret. A lot of people have never seen it or heard of it. Otherwise, it would garner a solid 8.5 or 9!

This is a 3 hour story that pulls true bits from history into a novel story about Calamity Jane, which she narrates thru letters written to a child she gave up for adoption. Angelica is absolutely convincing as Calamity Jane. Her accent & appearance and heart is fully in every moment of the film, as are the other players - and it is a 100% perfect feat of casting.

There are so much wonderful dialogue & so many quotes throughout the movie - within Calam's narration to the banter of Jim & Bartell to the in-charge Doozie, and the wise observations of No Ears.

It's full of humor and drama, and then there are the most bittersweet moments!

Highly recommended!

The late 1800s, the myth of the Wild West was fading.

[TxMike · 17 April 2021]

Not sure how it was presented originally but now, in 2021, I was able to watch it on a single DVD, two 90-minute episodes. In 4:3 picture format. The first one focused on the 1870s with real characters like Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. The second one contains a lot on the tour Buffalo Bill's Wild West show took through England a few years after.

Through it all the most featured character is Calamity Jane, depicted very well by Anjelica Huston. In the England segment Reba McEntire is very effective as Annie Oakley. All in all a very well presented set of stories about the old west.

My wife watched the first episode with me, I watched both. On DVD from my public library.

Why not share this class?

[bencarey · 16 January 1999]

Excellent script, it would be good to see this kind of class transposed to very expensive movies, and sorry about this but has anyone considered setting Buffalo Girls in stardate 56/24/17? Will it work? It would be interesting.