Showdown at Williams Creek
The film is loosely based on the story of John George Kootenai Brown using the fictional character of McTooth to tie together several exciting episodes of Browns life. The film begins in 1870 with Kootenai Brown on trial for a murder in Montana. In flashback it is revealed how the young Irishman, formerly a British army officer, began his adventures by seeking his fortune in North America. In the early 1860s he came to Williams Creek, BC, with his companion Arthur Vowell to mine gold. They are moderately successful but soon lose their earnings by gambling and misadventure. Left with nothing, Brown parts with Vowell, and with the Scottish rogue McTooth attempts to travel over the mountains to Edmonton. When Brown is shot in the back by the Blackfoot he is left to die by McTooth, but is fortunately found by Mtis hunters under Gabriel Dumont. In short time Brown now nicknamed Kootenai becomes part of the group falling in love with a young Mtis woman. When the bison which the Metis depend on get scarce and he is again forced to form a partnership with McTooth at Gibbons Trading Post near Portage la Prairie. After a gunfight, sparked by a dispute over whiskey, Kootenai Brown flees the trading post and returns to his Mtis people. The reunion is brief as Dumont departs to lead the Mtis in a confrontation with the government and Kootenai Brown settles into family life in a cabin. Incredibly, McTooth reappears and forms another uneasy partnership with Kootenai Brown this time wolfing - hunting and poisoning wolves for their pelts. When McTooth sells the pelts in Fort Benton and attempts to leave before splitting the earnings with his partner, Kootenai Brown has finally had enough and kills him in the street. The trial seems an open and shut case until Arthur Vowell, now a government official, makes a surprise return and testifies in Kootenai Browns behalf, revealing it was McTooth who secretly stole their gold years ago. Kootenai is released and returns to Canada with his family.The Irish-favoured soundtrack was composed by Michael Conway Baker, who also worked on the score for the Grey Fox.
murder