Review of Little Big Man

Like other Hollywood films that distorted the history of the west, e.g. They Died With Their Boots On and Soldier Blue, Little Big Man is a product of its time. The film came out during the Vietnam War, when cynical suspicion of U.S. policies and the military became mainstream. So we have Custer depicted as a raving sociopath, Americans in general depicted as brutish racists and scoundrels, and the Sioux depicted as lovable "the human beings," as they modestly referred to themselves in the film. Custer and his men are shown attacking a defenseless and peaceful Cheyenne village on the Washita, massacring women and children, whereas in fact that encampment was the base of warriors who were killing settlers in western Kansas. In order words, these were Indians on the warpath, and that is why Custer was ordered to attack the encampment, which actually consisted of several large villages. Custer and his men were barely able to extricate themselves with their prisoners, the women and children, as masses of warriors arrived and counterattacked. Many troopers were killed and mutilated, and two young white women who were held captive as slaves were killed by the squaws. None of this appeared in the film. The depiction of the Battle of the Little Big Horn is highly inaccurate, and once again Custer is shown as thinking he can attack a defenseless Indian village and massacre helpless women and children. In fact, the Sioux , and some Cheyenne, were encroaching on the historical territory of the Crow, the arch enemies, along with other tribes, of the Sioux, who certainly did not refer to them "the human beings." Indeed, the Little Big Horn battlefield is on the Crow Nation Reservation. Custer knew there were many warriors in the large village he saw, but he underestimated the number of warriors and made things worse by splitting his command into three units. Yet most of the 7th Cavalry survived the battle. You would never know any of this from watching the film. The U.S. Army massacre of helpless civilians at My Lai in Vietnam was fresh in people's minds in 1970, and Custer, a brave man and a fine, though controversial, soldier, was shown as a 19th century Lt. Calley. So while the film is enjoyable thanks to a number of wonderful performances and interesting characters, the massive revisionist distortion of history warrants a rating of no more than four stars.