Skip to main content
Little Big Man film image; two Indigenous people riding horses in a desert

Dustin Hoffman ages a century in Arthur Penn’s picaresque anti-western, the tall tale of 121-year-old Jack Crabb, a white man rescued and raised by the Cheyenne, a one-time snake-oil salesman, gunslinger, and mule skinner under General George Custer (Richard Mulligan) — which is how he came to be at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Vancouver’s own Chief Dan George plays Jack’s foster father with great warmth and wit. As in Thomas Berger’s novel, Penn swings from farce to tragedy, mocking the callous, racist colonizers. The indigenous peoples are afforded more respect, but not the reverence you find in the pious Dances with Wolves. Even so, the film has epic qualities. It’s one of the great lost movies of its time.

Penn has made a tangy and, I think, unique film with American verve, about some of the grisly things that American verve has done.

Stanley Kauffman, The New Republic

Hoffman’s triumph could have been anticipated, but the marvellous performance by Chief Dan George is a revelation. It has a patriarchal dignity blended with a complex sense of irony about his own image.

Urjo Kareda, Toronto Star

Director

Arthur Penn

Cast

Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George, Robert Little Star, Robert Mulligan

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

1970

Language

English

19+
139 min

Book Tickets

Sunday August 03

2:00 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Book Now

Wednesday August 13

4:45 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Book Now

Credits

Screenwriter

Calder Willingham

Cinematography

Harry Stradling Jr.

Editor

Dede Allen

Original Music

John Hammond

Production Design

Dean Tavoularis

Art Director

Angelo Graham

Also in This Series

Getting Real charts the evolution of screen acting in American film from 1945-1980, diving into the psychological realism which took audiences somewhere deeper and more authentic than ever before.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Dir. Elia Kazan
122 min

"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

On the Waterfront

Dir. Elia Kazan
108 min

Marlon Brando's definitive performance as Terry Malloy, a New York dockworker (and once a promising boxer) who loses faith in his union and his smarter but corrupt older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) after a whistleblower is murdered.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

East of Eden

Dir. Elia Kazan
115 min

Salinas, 1917. Cal Trask's forlorn attempts to win the affection of his self-righteous father (Raymond Massey) represented James Dean's first leading role in the cinema, and his emotionally raw performance ennobled misunderstood youth everywhere.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Rebel Without a Cause

Dir. Nicholas Ray
111 min

Kids turned bad in the 1950s -- and their newly comfortable middle-class parents couldn't understand why. Ray points the finger right back at them: "You're tearing me apart!" rails Jim Stark (James Dean), speaking for his generation.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Giant

Dir. George Stevens
198 min

This was the Yellowstone of its time: a big, sweeping modern Western built around an imposing ranch and family dynamics -- except Giant is much more subversive. James Dean strikes it rich as Jett Rink, much to the disgust of his former boss, Rock Hudson.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
The Fugitive Kind
The Fugitive Kind film image; woman sits behind a brooding man with a guitar

The Fugitive Kind

Dir. Sidney Lumet
121 min

Sidney Lumet's movie brings together two of the greatest actors of the period, Brando and Anna Magnani, reason enough to check out this underrated poetical drama about a handsome musician who washes up in a small southern town.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Hustler

Dir. Robert Rossen
135 min

Prime Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, a hungry pool shark who knows he's the sharpest guy in the room. Jackie Gleason and George C Scott have other ideas.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Hud

Dir. Martin Ritt
112 min

Landmark modern western with Brandon de Wilde from Shane worshipping the wrong hero, Paul Newman’s eponymous heel. According to Paul Schrader, this movie marks the birth of the cynical (anti-)hero in American cinema.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Jimi James: Blues for Brando

Dir. Laszlo Benedek
140 min

The Jimi James Quintet pays tribute to the emergence of bebop, in many ways a parallel artistic innovation to Method acting. A set of bebop classics will be followed by a screening of Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Wild River

Dir. Elia Kazan
112 min

Tennessee Valley Authority man Montgomery Clift finds derision from the locals, love from the war widow Lee Remick, and obduracy from matriarch Jo Van Fleet, who just won’t leave that scheduled-to-be-flooded farm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre