I don't know what to say about Little Big Man (1970). It's been a favorite movie since I saw it when it was new. I was 14, on vacation with my family in Helsinki (English, with Finnish subtitles). I don't think I've seen it since, and was surprised by how much I had remembered.
It's framed as an interview with Jack Crabb, Dustin Hoffman in heavy makeup as a 120-year old man, the last white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. His tale starts when he was a young boy, on a wagon heading west. A band of Pawnee massacred the wagon train, except him and his sister. They are picked up by a Cheyenne, and taken back to their village. His sister escapes, but Jack stays on and is raised as an Indian. Although he is small, Chief Dan George declares him brave and names him Little Big Man.
When the Army attacks, Jack declares himself white, and is taken in by the Army. He is adopted by a religious family, who possibly misjudge his age due to his small size - although the wife seems to think he is old enough. He goes on to become a snake-oil salesman, a gun fighter, a muleskinner for General Custer, and finally, returns to his Cheyenne family. But these stories don't end happily for the Indians...
What I remembered most about the movie was the sexy scenes - particularly when his Indian wife convinces him to service her three sisters in one night. It's the kind of thing that sticks in a 14-year-old's mind. I think I got most of my early ideas about native culture from this movie - things like the contrary people, who do everything backwards, and the men who act as women.
All in all, I'd say the movie holds up. The humor can be a little broad, but that's what I liked. Dustin Hoffman seems to spend a lot of screen time looking woodenly perplexed. But either he got over it, or I stopped noticing. It was funny to hear him talking Frontier instead of Brooklyn, but I guess he pulled it off. The treatment of native issues was about as good as it gets, not just for 1970, but for any movie made by Euro-Americans,
On this re-watch, I say like Dan George, "My heart soars like a hawk."
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I remember the audience groaning in disappointment when the scene with Faye Dunaway fades to black just when it got interesting. So I guess I was fourteen at the time too.
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