The Last Hunt is a 1956 American Western film directed by Richard Brooks and starring Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger, with Lloyd Nolan, Debra Paget and Russ Tamblyn.

[2] Sandy McKenzie, a famous buffalo hunter for the Army Engineers, has his small herd of cattle wiped out by stampeding bison.

They add an old friend of McKenzie, a legendary skinner named Woodfoot because of his peg leg, and young Jimmy O'Brien, whose mother was Dakota, to their team.

The presence of the native woman causes tension and Gilson becomes increasingly paranoid and deranged, leading to a stand-off between the two former partners.

In fact, Jimmy took it and placed in a tree along with the body of his friend, one of Gilson's many victims, according to the religious practices of their people.

McKenzie and the woman ride away, and the camera pans up to a nearby tree, the white buffalo skin stretched in its branches.

This is the real thing, a gritty, tough, exciting story reeking with the pungent smells of dead buffalo and of dirty men.

[8] Lloyd Nolan was also cast – his first film role in over a year and a half, during which time he had played The Caine Mutiny Court Martial on stage.

The story takes place during the winter but was actually filmed during the scorching summer months in Custer State Park.

[1] In his March 1, 1956, review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote: “ Buffaloes never looked lovelier than they do…in "The Last Hunt," …Great shaggy beasts with tiny soft eyes and heads like mahogany lions roam in huge herds across the landscape… Indeed, they appear so noble in their natural habitat on the western plains that it shocks one to sit in the theatre and see them deliberately slain.

It is the annual "thinning" of the protected herd at Custer State Park in South Dakota, … It is official and necessary killing, …Even so…the cold-blooded shooting down of them as they stand in all their majesty and grandeur around a water hole…is startling and slightly nauseating.

… Of course, that is as it was intended, for "The Last Hunt" is aimed to display the low and demoralizing influence of a lust for slaughter upon the nature of man.

He develops, especially, a soft spot for a beautiful Indian girl…And while his companion..is alternately beating on the girl and making vain efforts to assault her, Mr. Granger is, …working up his nerve to slug his pal.