Little Big Man (1970)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Arthur Penn had a great run of films starting with "Bonnie and Clyde" and (arguably) ending with "Night Moves" that all seem to deal with the abject failure of the American ideal and it's institutions. Dustin Hoffman stars as the oldest survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn (in incredible old age make up by Dick Smith) who tells William Hickey his life story. Hoffman is adopted by the Cheyenne and raised as one of them after his family is killed in an attack by the Pawnee. He eventually rejoins white society and has a series of adventures mostly highlighted by the meanness and hypocrisy of everyone he meets. This culminates in him witnessing the (deserved) massacre of Custer's troops at Little Big Horn. This isn't Penn's best film, but it's one of the best films of it's era that uses the conventions of the Western to comment on the unrest in current society, especially about the war in Vietnam. It has a magnificent supporting cast highlighted by Richard Mulligan's bravura portrayal of Custer as an egomaniac.

Raised by Amerindians after his family was killed, a nursing home resident recounts his experiences in the Wild West, torn between religion, con men and gunslingers and culminating in Custer's Last Stand. It is a wild tale, and narrated by a cantankerous old man, the film treads a fine line between presenting a revisionist version of history with the protagonist witnessing various important events a la 'Forrest Gump' and the deluded ramblings of an elderly man a la Salieri in 'Amadeus'. Whatever the case, it is an engaging tale for sure. Much of the film's success is due to Dustin Hoffman's performance. He never really looks like a teenager but he certainly manages to act like it, convincingly aging over a century over the course of the film while retaining a boyish curiosity. A strong supporting cast includes Oscar nominee Chief Dan George as his mystical Amerindian surrogate parent, Richard Mulligan as a daunting, smug General Custer, plus Martin Balsam, Jeff Corey and Faye Dunaway. Director Arthur Penn throws some neat touches in the mix, such as the audio cutting out during a battle and only gradually fading back in. Encapsulating as the film may be though, the tone is admittedly all over the place with very lighthearted comedic touches (the Amerindians working out that his sister is actually a girl) in between grim and serious drama (his wife being kidnapped). The film works best though if taken as something more whimsical than down-to-earth or serious. The film's compression of the Old West experience into one human lifetime is certainly remarkable.

This was one of the first neo- or revisionist-westerns and it really is a bit of a shame younger audiences mostly don't seem to know it: this is classic seventies gold. Arthur Penn, one of the driving forces behind the so called New-Hollywood (he also directed 'Bonnie and Clyde'), delivered a masterpiece - with a fantastic Dustin Hoffman. It's an epic, tragic tale - but one told with an often very funny voice. Part satire, part honest look at America's dark and untold history, the tone and narrative structure of this film were ground-breaking. And it still looks fresh: the script, the acting, the camera, the music: everything still oozes quality more than 40 years later. A timeless classic. 9 stars out of 10.Favorite Films: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054200841/Lesser-known Masterpieces: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070242495/Favorite Low-Budget and B-movies: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054808375/Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls075552387/

My tastes have changed over the years. The last time I saw this was the edited-for-TV version and now recently, uncut on TCM. I liked it before; I didn't like it this time. It's like watching M*A*S*H in that it lulls you into thinking it's a comedy and then it gets very bloody and graphic. Gunfighter battles and Indian massacres. At least one part of the story is true: Custer did wipe out 210 innocent "Human Beings" (as the tribe calls itself) for almost no reason at all. However, most of the colorful parts of the movie seem to be tall tales. (Example: he makes love to 4 Indian squaws at once.) It reminds me of Cecil B. DeMille's "The Plainsman" in that the storyline is illogical. He meets up with the same colorful characters over and over again: Mr. Merriweather (Martin Balsam). Mrs. Pendrake (Faye Dunaway), who becomes a whore. "Olga", his fiery red-haired ungrateful wife, who becomes an Indian squaw for his "sworn enemy" Indian brother. Wild Bill Hickok, who dies unexpectedly. Chief Dan George, as "Grandfather", was nominated for an Oscar and deserved it. At the end an outstanding "dazed and confused" portrayal by Richard Mulligan as an egotistical and crazy General Custer. (Was the real Custer really that stupid?) Too long and too contrived for me. Dustin Hoffman's acting is very uneven. It's brilliant at times yet unpolished and unfunny.