The Trackers [1971]

 

This ABC TV-Movie was conceived as a pilot for a series starring Sammy Davis Jr. that proceeded no further than this film.

The premise is prejudice in the Old West. Davis plays a Deputy Marshal with prime tracking skills in a Post-Civil War era.

Ernest Borgnine’s ranch is raided, his son is killed, and his daughter abducted—he sends for what he assumes is a Marshal of the “preferred” race but what he gets does not set well.

The importance of the task means the men must work together despite differences.

There is growth along the way.

The story is not new but solidly presented. The show here is Borgnine playing worried agitation well, and Davis’s stoic reactions to prejudice on all sides.

Davis, who was quite a hand with gunplay in real life, features none of that here. Likely aiming for a more serious bearing than a show-off gun hawk.

No classic, but this viewer would have liked to see how the series would have developed—what is presented had promise.