Jeremiah Johnson movie romanticized Liver Eatin' Johnson

silenthunterstudios

silenthunterstudios

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A friend of mine at work told me about the man Liver Eatin' Johnson, and the more he told me about him, I stopped him and asked, are you talking about Jeremiah Johnson? I loved that movie, but Redfords character didn't eat peoples livers! Well, he told me about a book called Crowkiller, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...7/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-6397503-8130242. Supposedly, this is a biography, but it is listed as fiction, supposedly the authors got this straight from Johnson on his deathbed in 1900 :eek: . I am going to order a copy this weekend, thought you guys on the Wilderness forum might enjoy. A couple books I've gotten recently and ones that I am planning to get that you might enjoy...

Knife Talk
50 Dollar Knife Shop
Gangs of New York

I am getting
Knife Talk II
Living Well on Practically Nothing updated edition
Crowkiller
Robert the Bruce Trilogy Steps to an Empty Throne, Path of the Hero and Price of Kings Peace(mentioned by the same guy who told me about Crow Killer)
A Walk in the Woods, Lost Continent by Bill Bryson (anybody read these, are they worth buying?)
Devils Dictionary
Lost Hall of Records
Secrets of the Viking Navigators

Any other books about mountain men or indians that I might enjoy?
 
The book Crow Killer is entertaining reading. The sources were 2nd, 3rd or even 4th hand heresay. Liver-eating Johnson may have been a combination of one or more characters.

The Devil's Dictionary was written by Ambrose Bierce and is a collection of cynical definitions of common words that are quite humorous. Bierce was a great short story writer.

If you are looking for mountain man or frontier stories by far the best is any and all of Allan Eckert's series. The Frontiersman is the biography of Simon Kenton who was one of Daniel Boone's contemporaries. Tecumseh and That Dark and Bloody River are also excellent writings of the settlement of the Kentucky territory. Eckert describes the brutal existence of both Indians and early pioneers in a great narrative style.

The Silent Sky by Eckert is also a good narrative of the Passenger pidgeon. Incredible story of billions of these birds to extinction in less than 100 yrs.

Allan Eckert website
 
The movie was very loosely based on several different sources. It's a very good movie regardless.
 
Yeah and the TV shows about Grizzly Adams didn't tell you that the guy was largely responsible for exterminating grizzlys from the California area. He hunted them for food, pelts and protection for the railroads and gold miners.

His 'pet' bear was sorely mistreated and because of this, the bear, swiped the top of his head off, exposing his brain. He lived like that with wet canvas covering his brain for quite a while.
He used to hunt wolves and grizzlys with a knife. He'd wound them, and follow them to where they were 'holed up' and then go in after them with a Bowie. I read this in a book that I've forgotton. It was a true biography.

Hollywood screws most everything up.
 
elvenbladesmith07 said:
anyone ever hear of hugh glass? i believe that is a true story.
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There was a program about the mountain men on The History Channel a while back that had the story of Hugh Glass.
Gene
 
Jeremiah Johnson is my ALL time facorite movie, it is based partly on Crow Killer Johnson, but also the fictional novel Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher, (both are listed in the movies opening credits). Both of which I have read, and my copy of Crow Killer was sitting on my desk when I read this thread. They were adapted into a screenplay by John Milius (Dirty Harry) and Edward Anhalt.

In the acknowledgments, the authors say that Del Gue (played in the movie by Stefan Gierasch) passed much of the story to J.F. (White Eye) Anderson, who later worked with one of the authors in the 1940's Raymond W. Thorpe.

Interestingly enough, the movie is set about 40 years earlier than the real Johnson lived, he was in and around the musselshell in the mid 1870's, but the movie begins just prior to the end of the Mexican War.

One cool little "trivia" note, in the movie when Johnson returns to the "crazy Woman's" cabin, and finds the settler "Qualen" living there. He opens the root celler to discover Qualen's children hidden there from indians. The oldest daughter in the foreground is at that time future country music superstar Tanya Tucker in an uncredited role.
 
elvenbladesmith07 said:
anyone ever hear of hugh glass? i believe that is a true story.
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the movie "Man in the Wilderness" with Richard Harris is based loosely on Hugh Glass...another of the must see mountain man movies
 
According to the historians who have researched ol' "Liver Eatin' Johnston, he never ate anyone's liver, nor was he a "mountain man." He was born in 1824, in New Jersy, and the "mountain man" era was over by 1840, the year of the last rendezvous, held on the Green River. He did not even come west until 1863, after a hitch in the U.S. Navy, serving during the Mexican War.
He went to Montana, seeking gold. Finding very little, he joined the Union Army in 1864.

He was wounded at the battle of Westport, Missouri. The Army records read, "gunshot wound, left arm."

He worked as a scout, a guide, and a couple of times, indian fighter, plus served a stint as a constable. The account where he got the nickname, "Liver eatin' Johnston," was refuted by Johnston, himself. He never claimed to have eaten anyone's liver, other than to joke about it to a man after a fight with Souix indians, in which they had killed several Souix.

He was also known on the frontier as a drunk. Died in Los Angeles, in 1900. Still, an interesting figure of the old frontier.

"Jerimiah Johnson," was an enjoyable flick... even if it did star that anti-hunting, anti-gun, greenie weenie anti-capitalist, mega millionaire Robert Redford.

Source, among others, "The Gun Digest, 1992." "Ol' Liver Eatin', Probably Didn't," by Doc Carson.

FWIW. L.W.
.
 
Last Confederate - one of my favorite movies too. Larry Dean Olsen was one of the consultants.

For those who like acuracy in westerns, this guy is my favorite author...

http://www.mikeblakely.com/

Moon Medicine is an awesome book. West of You is a great album.
 
Quiet Bear said:
Last Confederate - one of my favorite movies too. Larry Dean Olsen was one of the consultants.

For those who like acuracy in westerns, this guy is my favorite author...

http://www.mikeblakely.com/

Moon Medicine is an awesome book. West of You is a great album.
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Yes, Larry's book is one of THE text on outdoor survival. I have the pleasure of knowing someone that taught with Larry for many years.

I will check out the Blakely books, the website sure looks cool.

If you can find it, Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher that I mentioned earlier is really good.
 
Thanks for the book suggestions. Have you guys seen the movie Hidalgo? I really enjoyed the movie, but was dismayed to learn that Frank Hopkins was not an endurance rider, but was a ditch digger in NY! Well, I did some more research, and found hundreds of photos showing Hopkins in the saddle, found out a little bit of information about the race of fire from the movie, and I have come to believe that history is rewritten often. The detractors and the supporters twist the truth to their own needs. I'll still read Crow Killer, but the fantasy world, while it is probably fictional, can be much more interesting.
 
Another friend at work told me how he thinks Johnson got his nickname. He said that Johnson was waiting for a riverboat to deliver supplies, and some indians came down to the spot too. He made it known that these mountain men were nuts, I believe him, being out in the wild for years on end sounds like a lot of fun, but I would probably start talking to myself. Anyway, he said that the mountain men got in a fight with the indians, and pulled out their knives, and killed each other. Well, Johnson was one of the ones left standing, and as they were fighting, the river boat pulled up, and the people on board were really enjoying the show, going nuts for the action. In the fury and the bloodlust, Johnson cut the guys liver out and took a hunk out of it in his mouth, just to rile the crowd even more. I asked my friend where he got the info, he said he had read it somewhere, and figured that the legend grew out of that incident, making Johnson a tall tale. Cool story if nothing else, just like Grizzly Adams living with his brain exposed to the elements. If there are any doctors or other professionals in the medical field on this board, is that possible?
 
Truth is often stranger than fiction. Eckert's books are top notch. The Ohio river valley made Iraq look fairly kind by comparison. Talk about atrocities in combat! I'd rather fight wth modern guns at a distance any day!
 
silenthunterstudios said:
Cool story if nothing else, just like Grizzly Adams living with his brain exposed to the elements. If there are any doctors or other professionals in the medical field on this board, is that possible?
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At this time in his life, he was involved w/ PT Barnum. There's records or PT talking to him about it.

PT Barnum info

"During their conversation Grizzly Adams took off his cap, and showed Barnum the top of his head. His skull was literally broken in. It had, on various occasions, been struck by the fearful paws of his grizzly students; and the last blow, from the bear called "General Fremont," had laid open his brain so that its workings were plainly visible. Barnum remarked that he thought it was a dangerous wound and might possibly prove fatal.

"Yes," replied Adams, "that will fix me out. It had nearly healed; but old Fremont opened it for me, for the third or fourth time, before I left California, and he did his business so thoroughly, I'm a used-up man. However, I reckon I may live six months or a year yet." This was spoken as coolly as if he had been talking about the life of a dog."

As I said, I remember reading about him in a biography some where. It's probably lost, but the memory stuck with me.
 
Robert H said:
Truth is often stranger than fiction. Eckert's books are top notch. The Ohio river valley made Iraq look fairly kind by comparison. Talk about atrocities in combat! I'd rather fight wth modern guns at a distance any day!
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I agree. The eastern frontier was brutal. Many of the tribes were man-eaters and entertainment was torturing and burning captives. The Eckert series is excellent, but "That Dark and Bloody River" was particularly filled with tales of frontier brutality.

"Jeremiah Johnson" - one of my favorite movies. I used to have the aforementioned books about Liver Eatin' Johnson around here someplace...
 
Like many films, Jeremiah Johnson went through a lot of changes from its conception in the mind of John Milius to the big screen. Milius was indeed inspired by the book Crow Killer, and his original script adhered fairly close to that source, with some typical Milius flourishes--such as the long vendetta between Johnson and the Crow lasting decades, and culminating in a battle between Johnson and his adopted son, not killed as a youth, but kidnapped and raised as a Crow. The fight was to end as a draw and Johnson was to go with his son to the Crow camp and live out his life as a hero amongst them. The adherence to the book can still be found in such small details as the reference to a ".30 caliber Hawken," as in the book. In reality, the rifle was probably a 30 gauge--roughly .54 caliber. But the error was retained all the way from the book to the final film. Milius's script also included corpse mutilation, but when the project went from a possible Peckinpah film starring Clint Eastwood to a Redford/Sydney Pollack collaboration, the studio insisted on a kinder,gentler version of the script, and thus it was toned down by Edward Anhalt.

It remains a great, elegiac film, amongst the best work by all three principal collaborators--Milius, Redford, and Pollack. Incidentally, and especially pertinent to this forum, Redford trained for the film with Larry Dean Olsen, author of the classic Wilderness Survival Skills, for which the actor wrote an introduction.

It is the best known film about the fur trade, although it is set, as noted by previous posters, in the late 1840's, after the rendezvous period, the "golden age" of the mountain men--1825-1840.
 
elvenbladesmith07 said:
anyone ever hear of hugh glass? i believe that is a true story.
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Wasn't one of the men assigned to stay with Glass, and who eventually left him, a young Jim Bridger?
 
Wow, as somebody who thinks the best westerns ever made were, number one in my book, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and number 2, The Wild Bunch, it is really cool to think of what the film would have been like with Sam Peckinpah directing and Clint Eastwood as Jeremiah Johnson. I think that Sam would have done a great job, Clint would have done a good job too, but he just wouldn't be right for the part, IMO. Maybe if Peckinpah had directed, maybe Clint would be good for that script, I would've liked to see that production either way.
 
Mike the JAG said:
Wasn't one of the men assigned to stay with Glass, and who eventually left him, a young Jim Bridger?
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I saw something on the History Channel on this. Its a true story and one of the guys that left him was Jim Bridger. According to the show, Glass didn't kill him because he was too young and green to understand that you never, ever left a fellow behind if he was injured.
 
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