THE MAN HUNTER (1972) – This made for tv movie should not be confused with the later Ken Howard series of the same name about a 1930s bounty hunter. This telefilm starred Roy Thinnes as David Farrow, a Big Game hunter who plies his trade in jungle locations around the world. Farrow is hired to track down a deadly Cajun criminal who has fled into the Louisiana bayous.
The venerable William “Big Bill” Smith plays Clel Bocock, a vicious but charismatic gangster who is a veritable Pretty Boy Floyd to the people of the bayous and is as much at home in the swamp as he is in the city.
The Man Hunter opens with Clel and his boys pulling off a bank robbery which misfires, with Clel killing the son of the bank owner in the resulting violence. When the cops lose Bocock in the swampland the bank owner, Walter Sinclair (David Brian), seeks outside help.
Viewers then join our title character on his latest safari, where we get to see David Farrow in action. After this most recent brush with death, Farrow is approached in Africa by the bank owner’s toady, Carl Auscher (Sorrell Booke as a combination of Boss Hogg and Wayland Smithers.).
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