bkoganbing 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.

wes-connors An historian interviews cranky 121-year-old Dustin Hoffman (as Jack Crabb), who promises to reveal truths about General Custer, "The Battle of Little Big Horn" and Indians (Native Americans). He narrates a biographical story, beginning with his adoption (abduction) as an orphan boy, by Cheyenne Indians. In the care of wise Chief Dan George (as Old Lodge Skins), Mr. Hoffman is raised as "Little Big Man" due to being small in stature. During times when "Whites" and Native Americans clash, Hoffman identifies himself as either White or Indian, switching sides and saving his life. We eventually get to the "Little Big Horn" battle, which provides sub-textual insight relating to Native Americans and the (then) present US battle...Period films usually fail to truly capture an era or setting; however intended, they more often reflect their year of production. This is certainly evident in much of director Arthur Penn's work. It is successfully seen in "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), but less happily a factor in "Four Friends" (1981). "Little Big Man" receives a full pardon in seeming to be about 1970; it's framed from the present, and narrated from that point, throughout. The story is historical fiction, with an emphasis on comedy. It's a grand production, but too fragmented; the segments tend to take away from the focus. Still, it's a fine reorganization of thought on Native American Indians, with a stellar performance by Mr. George as the wise Indian chief...Foolish "White man" is nicely represented by Richard Mulligan (as George Armstrong Custer). "White woman" is essayed by glamorous-looking Faye Dunaway. Although she's a Christian, we see Ms. Dunaway's character always making herself available for sex. In her first (of two) episodes, Dunaway is startlingly seen giving "son" Dustin Hoffman a bath. This part of the "Jack Crabb" role probably should have been played by Alan Howard, who otherwise plays Hoffman as a teenager (but it wouldn't be as funny, today). Also interesting is the inclusion of gay Cheyenne Indian Robert Little Star (as Little Horse), who apparently has full civil rights, including same-sex marriage. Native Americans were way ahead of their time.******* Little Big Man (1970-12-14) Arthur Penn ~ Dustin Hoffman, Dan George, Faye Dunaway, Richard Mulligan

canoebeyond One of the great movies of all time. Sensitive, funny: looks at the old west with a different and more honest perspective. Did I say highly amusing? This movie covers the lifetime of the main character, played by Hoffman and covers many phases of both his life and the opening of the west: from sod buster to gambler to Indian wars. This is a movies that can be watched repeatedly and you'll find something new every time.An acting tour de force for Hoffman. Chief Dan George is marvelous as are many others. You'll laugh a lot and probably cry a little too.Watch it if you haven't. Watch it again if you have.

mr_white692 Everyone i've talked to about this film has said to me, "Oh, it's just like the book". No, it is not! True, the gist of many of the scenes in the film resemble scenes in the novel, but only in the most rudimentary way. As cinematic as the book seems, it actually presents a major problem to any adaptor who wants to do anything like justice to it in a screen adaptation: I would say over two-thirds of the entire book is narration, and most of its scenes, as cinematic as they may seem, are embedded in this narration, and while there is also a great deal of dialogue, these scenes are tempered by passages where key things that happen are rendered in print only through vague description in the narration, of the "Oh, and then this happened" sort - meaning that anyone who wanted to turn this book into a movie where there is any kind of successful narrative flow that does justice to the book's sustained vision and creativity would have to do a LOT of creative work filling in these gaps, turning Berger's intermittent vagueness into specific screen action that matches in tone the dialogue and action Berger has already supplied. It's the kind of problem one can only envision being solved satisfactorily by bringing in the author himself to do the adaptation. In this respect, the filmmakers have failed utterly - there is not one second of this film that is anywhere near as inspired or witty as anything in the book. As craftsmanship, the film is mediocre; the film looks like it was shot on a soundstage, and gives the viewer no feeling for nature or the absurd, crazy poetry of American Indian life that is so much a part of what makes the book so successful; Berger's superbly sophisticated and imaginative moral absurdism has been turned into crude, ugly, cheap, cartoonish left-wing caricature that resembles the work of Oliver Stone; and, aside from the one glorious exception of Chief Dan George, in his wonderful turn as Old Lodge Skins, the performances are gross, sloppy and impersonal, with Dustin Hoffman terribly miscast, his innocent, square, adenoidal man-child persona subtly but completely wrong for the sketchiness and semi-amoral pragmatism of Jack Crabb, a man who drifts between two opposed lifestyles, American and Indian, forming no loyalty with either – a character which would require a projection, not of guilt or corruption, but of simple adult knowledge, something Hoffman is incapable of.