Mr Horn

Plot

Tom Horn's life is covered from his early days as an army scout, to his time as a Pinkerton agent, concluding with the events surrounding his death by hanging in 1903.

Historical accuracy

Comparing this movie to documented history shows many factual errors. Karen Black's character of Ernestina Crawford, sister to Emmet Crawford in the movie, was completely fictitious. General Crook appears in the movie after the point he historically died.

Production

William Goldman had come across the story of Tom Horn while researching that of Butch Cassidy and became fascinated with him, calling Horn "the most talented man who ever lived" in the Wild West, deciding to write a screenplay about him. In 1974 it was announced Goldman, Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack had formed a company, the Horn Company, to make the movie. " Like Jeremiah [Johnson], the script is very mythic," said Pollack. Goldman was reportedly paid $500,000 for his work.

In 1977 Mike Medavoy at United Artists announced he had bought William Goldman's script to star Redford. Pollack was still attached and he got David Rayfield to rewrite the script. Around this time it was announced that Steve McQueen had been developing his own Tom Horn movie.

Walter Coblenz was assigned to produce. "He is a hero of Western lore," said the producer. "Our picture will be very much about the man, his life and times. This is a distinct personality, the last of a breed, a man who was there in the last days of the real west. When he died, a good part of that life also died forever."

However Redford then dropped out of the project. The script was acquired by Lorimar Productions to be made for CBS. Robert Jacks, who produced, later said:

What we had was a very expensive William Goldman script. If it was done as a movie it would take $12 million and 95 days of shooting. We did it for a third of that and on a 50 day schedule. It was a long script, and we had to cut 50 minutes out of the first part... It's really better suited for television... I feel David Carradine was born to play Tom Horn. The similarity between their characters is incredible.

Filming took place on location in Mexico, starting July 1978, near Mexicali and Tecate.

Reception

The Los Angeles Times called Goldman's script "spare and witty and wonderful" and the movie "marvellous".

William Goldman later admitted he never saw the mini series. "Couldn't bring myself to... this was one of my bad experiences."