ne033x Showcase Theater - Man In The Wilderness (1971) - FULL MOVIE

Great Movie...Spiritual Redemption is the fundamental theme...Based on a true story in the year 1820. The Captain Henry expedition has completed two years of fur trapping in the unexplored Northwest territory. Determined to reach the Missouri River before the winter snows the trappers and their boat, towed by 22 mules, struggled through the wilderness. Once on the Missouri they could sail south to trading posts and sell their precious cargo. What occurred on this expedition is historically true.

Man in the Wilderness is a 1971 American action film about a scout for a group of mountain men who are traversing the Northwestern United States during the 1820s. The scout is mauled by a bear and left to die by his companions. He survives and recuperates sufficiently to track his former comrades, forcing a confrontation over his abandonment. The story is loosely based on the life of Hugh Glass. It stars Richard Harris as Zachary Bass and John Huston as Captain Henry.

The expedition is notable in the movie for bringing a large boat with them, borne on wheels. Captain Henry's aim of using the boat to traverse the rivers (possibly the Missouri or the Platte) comes to naught in the final scene, when the expedition comes across the drained riverbed.

The fundamental theme of the story is the spiritual redemption of an emotionally damaged man, Zachary Bass. By using flashbacks to his childhood, the director provides to the viewer the basis for Bass's emotional damage brought about by abandonment by his father and abuse by his schoolmaster.

After being abandoned by his fellow trappers, his motive for survival is revealed to be driven by many things, including revenge against Captain Henry, and the desire to see his young son, whom he left to be raised by his mother-in-law after his wife's death in childbirth. As it turns out, one of his comrades left a pocket Bible with Bass. It is this Bible that transforms and redeems Bass so that when he finally confronts his fellow trappers and Captain Henry, it is no longer the same hardened man that they meet. Rather, Bass has become transformed into a rational and forgiving man with no anger left in his heart.