"LITTLE BIG MAN" GREAT IN SPIRIT

          Dustin Hoffman stars in this free-wheeling version of the great American novel by Thomas Berger.

          The 1970 film opens in modern times with an interviewer recording the recollections of the oldest man in the world, 121 year-old Jack Crabb (Hoffman).

          Peppered with highly-effective narration, Little Big Man boasts a Twain-ish voice (Jack Crabb talks a lot like Huck Finn) and offers a sense of the true way of things regarding life in the West alternately comedic and dramatic.

          It's a movie that plays Emperor's New Clothes with Hollywood Westerns. Points right at 'em and says, "Nope. Weren't like that at all."

          And then proceeds to show the truth through a lot of wild tall tales while simultaneously pronouncing, "You callin' me a liar?"

          Old Jack Crabb talks about how Young Jack Crabb was both orphaned and raised by Native Americans.

          "For a boy it was a kind of paradise. I wasn't just playin' Indian, I was livin' Indian!"

          Incidental to nothing, this film uses a trick picked up years later by the makers of Superman - The Movie: When the actor playing the younger version of the star is on screen, we still hear the star's voice dubbed in.

          Reveling in revisionism is the fuel that powers the story. And the real star of the movie is a Salish tribal leader. Chief Dan George plays Cheyenne chief Old Lodge Skins, who is like a father to Crabb, himself reborn as Little Big Man.

          As an example of the revisionism, Little Big Man returns for awhile to the world of the white man, whereupon he goes through his gunfighter phase. Not knowing how to shoot, it's lucky for him he learns from his sister.

          "Shooting rifles against bow and arrow," J.C. pointedly recalls. "I never could understand how the white world could be so proud of winning with them kind of odds."

          Featuring Faye Dunaway as the pious--well, maybe not so pious--more like downright wanton, really--wife of a pious guy. When she's good enough to take Young Crabb in, she goes even further and makes sure he's scrubbed all clean and good.

          Also starring Richard Mulligan--eventually of TV's "Soap" and "Empty Nest" fame--as Custer. "I knowed General George Armstrong Custer for what he was," Crabb assures, "and I also knowed the Indians for what they was."

          Also in 1970 A Man Called Horse, starring Richard Harris, was released. That one imagines a tall blonde Englishman adopted by hostile Indians who eventually learn to respect him as a leader, and is famous for a rite-of-passage scene involving Harris being hung like a boob by hooks in his chest.

          Little Big Man comes from a different place. One not desirous of supremacy, but rather a place of respect.

LITTLE BIG MAN

Starring Dustin Hoffman,

Faye Dunaway,

Chief Dan George,

Martin Balsam,

Richard Mulligan,

Aimee Eccles,

Ruben Moreno

Directed by Arthur Penn

Written by Calder Willingham

Based on the novel by Thomas Berger

Runtime 139 minutes

Rated PG-13

Stewart Kirby write for

THE INDEPENDENT

and

TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"LONGEST YARD" GOES EXTRA MILE

       

         The captivating 1974 cinematic touchdown starring Burt Reynolds about ex-pro quarterback Paul Crewe in prison leading a team of convicts in a game against the semi-pro guards.
          Eddie Albert plays the prison warden who embodies the rigged system in which antihero Burt finds himself caught.
          Featuring elements inspired by Cool Hand Luke and Papillon, The Longest Yard belongs to a genre of films--including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--which pit a tainted and imprisoned hero against perverted Establishment.
          Sort of an evolved version of director Robert Aldrich's earlier hit The Dirty Dozen, The Longest Yard has the same recruitment aspects, except instead of Lee Marvin selecting cons for an attack on the Nazis, it's Burt shopping for opposition to the warden's football team.
          The major pro recruiting the cons is the assumption that they will a.) play with unusually bad intention, and b.) amplify intention further in a chance to get back at the abusive guards.

          One of the guards is played by Mike Henry, a real-life former football player and former movie Tarzan. (Henry also plays the dim-witted son of Jackie Gleeson in Burt's Smokey and the Bandit.)
          Richard Kiel, who rose to fame as the silent but deadly giant henchman Jaws in Roger Moore's James Bond tenure, has several memorable scenes as the biggest of the cons.
          But the title of Baddest Cat in the Joint goes to the convict named Connie Shokner. The actor's name is Robert Tessier. He had a thriving career as the bald baddie, appearing in many movies and dozens of TV shows. According to IMDb, Tessier was of Algonquian Indian descent, and received not only a Purple Heart but also a Silver Star as a paratrooper in the Korean War.
          Also co-starring Bernadette Peters as the warden's secretary, who, in a plus for Burt, digs Burt. Score!
          Without his trademark mustache, Burt looks like Marlon Brando in '74, and the filmmakers had to be aware of this. Screenwriter Tracy Keenan Wynn (son of Keenan Wynn, grandson of Ed Wynn), seems to subtly refer to Brando's response in The Wild One when asked what he's rebelling against and replying, "What have you got?" When Crewe is asked what makes him so tough, he laconically responds, "I don't know, it just comes natural."
          Unnaturally re-made in 2005 with Adam Sandler and swiftly clotheslined.


THE LONGEST YARD
Starring Burt Reynolds,
Eddie Albert,
Ed Lauter,
James Hampton,
Mike Henry,
Bernadette Peters,
Richard Kiel,
Sonny Sixkiller,
Robert Tessier
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Written by Tracy Keenan Wynn
Based on a story by Albert S. Ruddy
Runtime 121 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for 
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

CRONENBERG'S "FLY" TRANSFORMATIVE

          Drink deep of the plasma pool.

          The year is 1986: Jeff Goldblum is known as the geeky guy from The Big Chill (1983) and the nerdy guy from TV's short-lived "Tenspeed and Brown Shoe" (1980). When suddenly, BAM, The Fly.

          It was part of a trend of re-makes of classic 1950s sci-fi: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), Invaders From Mars (1986), all of which are color versions of B-movies boasting decades of special effects advances. But The Fly also hearkens to the classic inspirations of "body horror" from an additional thirty years prior, notably the silent horror films of Lon Chaney.

          Goldblum stars as Seth Brundle, sort of a less-public Tesla with a charged libido who wants to share the wonder of his new invention, but isn't quite ready to tell the world. The result is he takes a journalist named Veronica (Davis), whom he meets at a party, back to his laboratory to witness a demonstration of his teleportation pods.

          Similar to Chaney as Erik in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Seth Brundle plays piano in his dungeon-like lab, and would influence the career of his love-interest, with whom there is another potential suitor.

          The Raoul of The Fly is the editor of the science magazine Veronica writes for. An obsessively jealous former boyfriend, Stathis Borans (Getz) showers in Veronica's apartment when she's not there, stalks her around town, and conducts reprisals as her editor when rebuked.

          Whereas Chaney's roles reflected the aftermath of WWI, Goldblum's character may be seen as a product of the War On Drugs. At first his emergence from teleportation is fun. Then fun with problems. And then just problems.

          His teleportation pods have a hard time reintegrating animate life. Failed attempts graphically displayed account for a large part of the film's charm. As does Brundle's gradual transformation from quirky, bug-eyed, harmlessly mad scientist to full on unrecognizable monster.

          Brundle's biggest problem is accidentally teleporting himself...with a fly that wandered into the pod. Major oops.

          Fay Wray's unforgettable scene with Lionel Atwell in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), another darkly stylish gem, clearly influenced Cronenberg.

          Incredibly, Howard Shore's underappreciated score grabs the audience from the instantly moody notes and tells the tragic tale during the opening credits.

          Goldblum and Davis are perfectly cast. Dating each other at the time may account for some of that success.

          As a weakness to the film, there is a scene where Brundle is so far advanced in his transformation that there is just no way Veronica would possibly want to hug him. And that does take audiences a little bit out of the story. But most of the time, great pains taken toward believability pay off handsomely. All pre-CG, too.

          It was shot in Cronenberg's native Canada. That's Canadian boxing legend George Chuvalo in the bar room arm wrestling scene.

          On the uncanny strength of this breakthrough starring performance, Goldblum became the perfect choice to play the Chaos Theory expert in Jurassic Park (1993), which opened the giant doors to his name being associated with summer blockbuster success.

          Freely available online.

THE FLY

Starring Jeff Goldblum,

Geena Davis,

John Getz,

Joy Boushel,

George Chuvalo

Directed by David Cronenberg

Written by David Cronenberg, Charles Edward Pogue

Based on a story by George Langelaan

Runtime 96 minutes

Rated R

Stewart Kirby writes for

THE INDEPENDENT

and

TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE