Little Big Man (1970)

There is an endless supply of white men. There has always been a limited number of human beings.

Little Big Man is directed by Arthur Penn and written by Calder Willingham. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Martin Balsam, Chief Dan George and Richard Mulligan.

Arthur Penn's Little Big Man is tagged with many filmic sayings, be it revisionist or anti Western etc, it's a picture much cherished for its oddly quirky slyness. Allegorical movies are now in this day and age ten a penny, but back in 1970, with the Vietnam War in vivid focus, that wasn't the case. Marking this out as a provocative and ambitious venture.

Penn has fun debunking and poking fun at the myths of the Old West via an array of pungent characters that Jack Crabb (Hoffman) meets in his lifetime. All of which lea...

This is quite a fun series of escapades told by way of a flashback interview from the ostensibly 121 year old "Crabb" (Dustin Hoffman) who is the last survivor of George Custer's ill-fated battle at the Little Big Horn. His not entirely convinced interviewer asks him about his lively life and we embark on his times as a white man who became an Indian before being "rescued" again before some toing and froing between them all set against the pioneering culture of the settlers encroaching on the ancient territories of the natives and of the ensuing hostilities that culminated with "Yellow Hair" Custer's calamitous campaign against the Sioux. Along the way we meet an array of interesting characters like "Wild" Bill Hickok (Jeff Corey), the force of nature that is "Mrs. Pendrake" (Faye Dunaway)...