Little Big Man [Blu-ray]

Director: Arthur Penn Arthur Penn

Overview

Adapted from the novel by Thomas Berger, Little Big Man opens with the spoken reminiscences of 121-year-old Jack Crabbe (Dustin Hoffman, immersed in tons of age makeup). In flashbacks, we see how, as a young and wide-eyed frontiersman, Crabbe is adopted by an Indian tribe led by philosophy-spouting Chief Dan George. The film's highlight is the Little Big Horn massacre, with megalomaniac General Custer (Richard Mulligan) self-destructing as Crabbe looks on. Faye Dunaway shows up along the way as a sensual preacher's wife, who later becomes the jaded object of Wild Bill Hickok's (Jeff Corey) affection. The ingenuous Crabbe at hand during virtually every highpoint of Western history. To prepare for the scenes in which Crabbe is one hundred-plus, Hoffman screamed for hours in order to give his voice the proper parched timbre. Little Big Man seldom falters during its 150 minutes, but time has taken some of the lustre off this once highly-praised frontier fable.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/08/2011
UPC:	0097361452142
Original Release:	1970
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Paramount
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	2:19:00
Sales rank:	3,857

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dustin Hoffman	Jack Crabb
Faye Dunaway	Mrs. Louise Pendrake
Chief Dan George	Old Lodge Skins
Martin Balsam	Mr. Merriweather
Richard Mulligan	Gen. George Armstrong Custer
Jeff Corey	Wild Bill Hickok
Aimee Eccles	Sunshine
William Hickey	Historian
Allan Oppenheimer	Major
Lou Cutell	Deacon
M. Emmet Walsh	Shotgun Guard
Jesse Vint	Lieutenant
Thayer David	Rev. Silas Pendrake
Philip Kenneally	Mr. Kane - Drugstore Proprietor,Mr. Kane
Ray Dimas	Young Jack Crabb
Jack Mullaney	Card Player with Full House
Steve Miranda	Younger Bear as a Youth
Ken Mayer	Sergeant
Kelly Jean Peters	Olga
Carol Androsky	Caroline
Robert Little Star	Little Horse
Cal Bellini	Younger Bear
Ruben Moreno	Shadow That Comes in Sight
Steve Shemayne	Burns Red in the Sun
Alan Howard	Adolescent Jack Crabb

Technical Credits

Calder Willingham

Arthur Penn	Director,Producer
Calder Willingham	Screenwriter
Stuart Millar	Producer
Gene Lasko	Producer
Richard Portman	Sound/Sound Designer
Bud Alper	Sound/Sound Designer
Al Overton Jr.	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Little Big Man was one of a group of early 1970s Westerns that found a precedent for the atrocities of the Vietnam War in the history of white westward expansion at the expense of Native Americans. In the process, Arthur Penn and screenwriter Calder Willingham take apart the Western itself, sending up myths of white "civilization" and its proper violence while lending a humorous and poignant slant to the mythic "noble savages" -- not to mention casting actual Native American actors. Primed for Western iconoclasm by an ever more vigorous antiwar movement and counterculture, audiences turned Little Big Man into a surprise hit; Chief Dan George garnered a New York Film Critics Circle prize and an Oscar nomination for his performance. One of the most successful of the period's revisionist Westerns, Little Big Man stands as a timely and wittily caustic indictment of western myths and the contemporary legacy of manifest destiny.