The White Buffalo is a 1977 fantasy Western film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Charles Bronson, Kim Novak, Jack Warden, Slim Pickens and Will Sampson.

Reviewing the novel, Larry McMurtry said Sale "chose a topic with great possibilities, turned it into a sharpened stake and proceeded to impale himself on it.

The script, based on a Richard Sale novel, instead takes side trips into a standard barroom shootout and a Charles Bronson reunion with an old lady friend (Kim Novak).

The title beast looks like a hung-over carnival prize despite attempts at camouflage via hokey sound track noise, busy John Barry scoring, murky photography and fast editing.

"[7] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post stated that the film "is destined for almost instant obscurity in domestic release, a consummation that can't come a minute too soon for director J. Lee Thompson, star Charles Bronson and everyone else in an exposed position on this fiasco."

"[10] Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "One would have to consult Richard Sale's novel to determine whether the freakish gaps, detours and red herrings are ascribable (in whole or in part) to the original source.

Equally bizarre and inexact is the title beast itself—a clumsy mechanical contrivance resembling a giant shaggy toy whose roars bear an uncomfortable similarity to the sounds of a growling stomach.