Watch Little Big Man For Free

Excellent but underrated film

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Dustin Hoffman with Little Big Man joined the ranks of such players as Jeanette MacDonald, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward Judd. What he had in common with them is that he played a man greatly aged with make up reminiscing about his youth which was quite a colorful one. Later on Cicely Tyson and Emilio Estevez joined this select bunch.Poor Hoffman just can't find himself a niche in the world of the west either with white men or with Indians. He finds himself in the Dakota Territory of the 1870s and makes the acquaintance of such people as Wild Bill Hickok and George Armstrong Custer, a couple of old west legends who met famous premature deaths in the same year of 1876. And of course some lesser people in mostly low places.Hoffman gets some great support from people like Martin Balsam as a medicine show conman whom he spends some time with and Faye Dunaway as the widow woman who takes the orphan Hoffman in and explains and demonstrates the facts of life. Jeff Corey plays Wild Bill Hickok who explains to Hoffman he really doesn't have the right stuff to be a gunfighter.Best of all is Richard Mulligan as the controversial General George Armstrong Custer whose ambitions for military glory led to the massacre at Little Big Horn. Mulligan is ambitious and will not take good advice. Watching Little Big Man in the scenes with Mulligan it was like looking at Donald Trump campaigning for president. Just like The Donald, Mulligan will not listen to anyone other than himself. In fact you mostly have to use reverse psychology to get Mulligan to do things your way. Hoffman may be a misfit, not unlike his character in The Graduate, but he learns to play Mulligan like a piccolo.Little Big Man is a different and entertaining look at the old west and Hoffman is superb. But the one to really watch in this is Richard Mulligan. He steals the film in whatever scene he's in.

121 year old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) recounts his life in the old west. He claims to be the sole white survivor of Little Bighorn. He and his older sister Caroline are the sole survivors of Pawnee. They are taken in by the Cheyenne. Caroline escapes but Jack is adopted. He is captured by US troopers, apprentice with a snake-oil salesman, becomes a gunslinger after reuniting with Caroline, meets Wild Bill Hickok, marries and bankrupted store, follows Custer, reunite with the Cheyenne and then tricks Custer into Little Bighorn.This is part tall-tales, part satire, part historical reimagining and more accurate than most old western. It is smart and funny. It takes sharp jabs at the old image of Indians. Dustin Hoffman is brilliant in this new world western epic. It does take random turns which is part of its charm.

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/

Strange as it may seem, I was impressed with how similar the basic plot construction is to that of the well-regarded '41 film "Sullivan's Travels", which has nothing to do with Native Americans nor genocide. What they have in common is the main character(Jack, in the present case) plunged into an alien culture, then several times going back and forth between these cultures. For a time, they seem a lost soul, unsure of their identity as a member of one or the other culture. They also have the commonality of ironic coincidences as a recurring determinant of their drifting lives. There are, of course, some major differences in the character of the film. Clearly, the unexpected reappearance of numerous characters in Jack's life is a central theme of this film, which may well, as one reviewer suggested, symbolize the Native American's view of the universe as an endless series of recurring cycles.Some reviewers make the extravagant claim that this is the first film to clearly portray Plains 'Indians' as relatively desirable people, if not without some foibles. In contrast, their European conquerors were, on the whole, a crazy, greedy, arrogant, hypocritical bunch. But there were previous well known films that presented western 'Indians' as 'good guys', including the John Ford films: "Fort Apache" and, most relevantly, "Cheyenne Autumn",released 7 years earlier. The latter two dealt with conflict between the Cheyenne and US cavalry, in which the cavalry, along with most European settlers, were presented as 'the bad guys'. Of course, "Soldier Blue", also released in 1970, was another presumably Vietnam War-inspired take on the massacre of Cheyenne by US cavalry. In some respects, it more resembled "Cheyenne Autumn", while in other respects, it more resembled the present film. The '51 "Across the Wide Missouri" also presented an intimate portrait of Plains 'Indians'. Like Old Lodge Skins(OLS), Chief Bear Ghost in that film had had his fill of deaths from warfare, and was resigned to accept the fate of his people as eventual wards of a country governed by Europeans.One of the striking ironies is that OLS and Jack, who have suicidal thoughts at times later in the film, are the only ones spared in Custer's second annihilation of a Cheyenne village. OLS's belief that he can make himself invisible, in plain sight to the cavalry, appears to work. However, his later belief that magic can also make him die when he wants doesn't work. Both he, perhaps as a symbol of 'Indians' in general, and Jack will presumably live to see the Plains 'Indians' subdued, but not quite exterminated, forced onto reservations lacking their vital bison. Thus, OLS recognizes that the Indian's victory at Little Big Horn is their Pearl Harbor equivalent. Like the later Japanese, he knew that they were ultimately doomed in their struggle with the US military. Incidentally, I doubt it mere coincidence that Jack's Cheyenne name means Little Big Man, and that he is the only apparent survivor of the 7th cavalry massacre at Little Big Horn.I haven't seen any comments on a possible relationship between Younger Bear's seemingly irrelevant period of of being an obsessive contrary(doing the opposite of every normal thing), and Custer's later assumption that Jack, as his mistrusted scout, will advise him the opposite of what is favorable in relation to the 'Indians' at Little Big Horn. As a result, Custer is wildly overoptimistic in his assessment of his chances against the 'Indians'. But, instead of blaming himself for mistrusting Jack's information, he wants to shoot Jack. Custer, as well as Bill Hickok, can be interpreted as representing the bullying, overconfident, trigger-happy US military in the Vietnam War, as well as the 'Indian' wars.The presentation of European vs. Cheyenne women in Jack's life is perhaps the most unbalanced aspect of the film. The European women are all extreme types. His older sister Caroline is presented as rather mannish, the Cheyenne first assuming her to be a man, and not interested in having sex with her after discovering their mistake. Later, she reemerges in Jack's life as the leader of a vigilante group out to do justice to Jack and his quack medicine business partner. Later, she appears to attempt an incestuous relationship with Jack, before teaching him to be the best gunslinger in the West. But she can't change Jack's effeminate pacifist personality, thus eventually deserts him.Meanwhile, Jack comes under the influence of hypocritical, adulterous, nymphomaniac Louise, totally miscast as the wife of a bible-thumping 'Indian'-hating preacher, later to reappear to Jack as a widowed prostitute. Then, there is Olga, his rather stupid Scandinavian wife for a short while, before stolen by Cheyenne, to become the shrewish wife of Younger Bear. In contrast, his 4 Cheyenne widowed sister wives are presented as good women. Unfortunately, all were soon massacred, perhaps also symbolizing the infamous recent My Lai massacre in Vietnam.