LITTLE BIG MOVIE

Little Big Man is a 1970 classic comedy/drama. It is like Blazing Saddles crossed with How the West was Won. Dustin Hoffman plays Jack Crab a 121-year-old man living in a nursing home, who once was a great Indian fighter or was he? Arthur Penn directed. Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George and Richard Mulligan co star. The camera work is great and this movie has great scenes of the old west. The movie is based on a book by the same name written by Thomas Berger. I read the book over 20 years ago. It is a good book and long over 800 pages. The difference between the book and the movie are few but you get to know Jack as more of a crotchety old man in the book.

Jack Crab has a journalist come and interview him in the nursing home. He wants to interview him because he was a great Indian fighter. The journalist bites off more of a story than he bargained for. Jack and his family were on a wagon train going out west. Somewhere in the Great Plains the Pawnee attacked them. 10-year jack and his sister were the only survivors. A Cheyenne brave found them and took them to his camp. His sisters escaped because she was sure they were going to rape and kill her. What she did not know was that the Cheyenne though of themselves as peaceful people and called themselves the human beings. Jack was adopted by the Cheyenne, and taught how to be a human being by many in the tribe. The chief Old Lodge Skin ( Chief Dan George) becomes his grandfather. He runs into some trouble in that he makes an enemy for life in another young Indian Younger Bear. Jack is small for his age and gets the name Little Big Man.

As Jack nears adulthood the Calvary start to attack the Cheyenne. During a battle Jack is found out to be a white man by a solder. He is sent to the Reverend and Mrs. Pendrake (Fay Dunaway), to have the Indian beat out of him and a fine Christian lifestyle shown to him. Mrs. Pendrake was a randy lady who drips sexuality. This sends Jack away from the Lord. So Jack hooks up with a snake oil salesman. From this con man Jack learns that he cannot be dishonest.

After his sister tars and feathers him for the acts that the con man and he does, Jack reunites with her. She shows him how to be a gunfighter. Jack turns into a dude of a gunfighter with the great name of the Soda Pop Kid. Then he runs into Wild Bill Hitcock. After seeing death up close and personal he decides he does not have the stomach for this line of work. He gets married and goes in the dry goods business. It would of worked out but his partner was a crook. He then runs into General Custer (Richard Mulligan). Custard gives him the advice that he should take his wife out west for a new start.

As Jack and his wife are going out west by stage coach, Indians attack them. Jack lives but they take his wife. So Jack goes in search of his wife. He is not that worried going into Indian country because he was once on himself. Jack once again runs into his enemy Little Bear. He is lucky he runs into other Cheyenne first or it would have been bad. After staying with his adoptive people for a while he returns to the white world. He once again runs into General Custer who hires him to be a muleskinner. He goes with the solders on a raid of a Cheyenne camp. They are supposed to take try and take the woman and children prisoner. It does not work out this way and Jack is almost killed by the solders. He finds a woman hiding in the grass. He decides he will take her to Old Lodge Skin and trade her for his wife. When he finds Old Lodge Skin he finds that the white man has wiped many of his friends out. He stays with his adoptive people. He takes an Indian wife and ends up with 3 of her sisters as wives because they have lost their husbands. They move with other bands to an area that they have a treaty with the Government. They will be safe there and not be bothered by the white man. Of course this does not work out and General Custer brings the solders up and slanders most of the camp. Jack saves Old Lodge Skin. After a failed attempt to kill General Custer, Jack turns into a drunk. He runs into his old friend Wild Bill Hitcock who gives him some money to do a favor for him. He gets to see Wild Bill’s last game of cards. While doing the favor he runs into his stepmother Mrs. Pendrake. She is now working in a cathouse. He then returns to his life of a drunk. After this wears thin he becomes a mountain man. He goes half mad. Who does he run into in the middle of nowhere but General Custer and his solders. He is hired as a scout. He rides into Little Big Horn with the General and rides out with the Cheyenne. He claims to be the only white survivor of this battle.

Dustin Hoffman narrates the movie as the 121-year-old Jack. He sounds like what you think a 121-year-old man would. The few scenes where they show him as the old man are also great. It was reported that he had to have 5 hours of make up to play the old man.

The books Little Big Man and Forrest Gump are similar in that the main character experience so much of history. Jack Crab is not a simpleton like Forrest They only have about 100 years different between them. I would say that of the two movies Little Big Man is closer to the book. If you like westerns or comedies you would not go wrong in renting or buying this great movie. If like like to see history rewritten, this movie does a great job of it. I will say that the drama parts of this movie are though provoking. This movie is rated PG. There is some very graphic violence and some sexual situations. I would not let a preteen watch this, due to the violence.