The outlaw josey wales (M31)

clint eastwood. josey starts as a farmer whose family is killed by yankees. (for more exact history see wikipedia). he joins up with the rebels and fights in the civil war. when the war is lost, he is with a group that refuses to surrender. finally their leader says, "boys, it's time to surrender." they surrender and are gunned down by the yankees. josey and a young (17 year old) boy go out on their own. there is a reward on josey's head. yankees pursue him, but when they get on the ferry he shoots the rope and cuts it and the yankees float away. when a farmer and his son capture him, josey and the boy shoot their way out. the boy dies (he was wounded in the original yankee massacre.) josey wanders and teams up with an old indian. he is cornered in a store as some white men are raping an indian woman (she speaks only indian and josey often says things like "I can't understand a word she's saying. why doesn't she stop talking.) he is trying to travel through the country incognito when a medicine con man (thief a la w.c. fields) recognizes him and the yankees try to kill him, but he gets away. he comes across some kansas old lady and her daughter (sandra locke) and he kills those who imprisoned them. they make their way to a house that the old lady's son (no longer alive) has built for her. some indians want to fight them and josey speaks sense to them in a moving passage (i speak words of death and words of life). they cut hands and become blood brothers. yankee bounties come to town and try to kill him, but between josey on horseback and the old lady and the rest of the crew armed with rifles, he is able to wipe them out. he is still bleeding when he goes to town and meets up with more bounty hunters. the people in the town, grateful for his generosity testify that they've seen josey wales killed by bounty hunters, so that the new bounty hunters (or soldiers) will give up the chase. along with the bounty hunters is the original leader of the "rebel outlaws" whose surrender led to his men getting slaughtered. He says that he doesn't believe that josey is dead, even as he looks josey in the eyes. He says he will head to Mexico in search of Josey. Now Josey can go home to the mousy Sandra Locke.

(solid) B