The Battle of Little Bighorn carries such a weight of American mythology in it’s wake, our collective expectations of its’ events will never be fulfilled when faced with the battle’s smaller-scaled reality. The anniversary of the Battle just passed from June 25th, 1876 (never realized that it was so close to the actual American Centennial), and it represented the open-field cavalry conflict with Native Americans that the United States military had wanted to avoid, certainly when the pendulum of time and resources was in the favor of the invading Union soldiers. A movie from the 1960’s brings to cinematic life and light the idea that one of America’s most famous Military battles on it’s own soil was brought about in part by a Man who sought Military glory to the point that he put his Men in unnecessary danger in both the Civil War and the Indian Wars, a point thoroughly acknowledged by Historians. General Custer was 22 years old when the American Civil War Between the States began. This movie bio-pic, Directed by Robert Siodmak, was titled “Custer of the West” and starred Robert Shaw as the famous American General. Shaw looks and sounds like the script had been written specifically for Richard Harris, especially his look for the film and mannerisms in certain scenes. The movie was initially supposed to have been Directed by Fred Zinneman. Spanish locales throughout this film are substitutes for the Dakotas.
“Custer of the West” opens with a Civil War prelude in which we are introduced to General Custer and his dozens of Calvary charges made during the Civil War against the Confederacy, from the opening there is a Spaghetti Western hue, timbre and sensibility about this picture. “Custer of the West” opens with an almost silent movie-type isolation of Robert Shaw as Custer on Horseback. As one character is heard to remark later in the film, the real-life Custer supposedly led as many as 60 Calvary charges during the Civil War and Custer always managed to survive. The suggestion early on from the film is that Custer was youthful and reckless, his need for personal adrenaline and glory may have gotten troops unnecessarily killed in Custer’s haste for engagement, and yet due to his penchant for bold risks, Custer was considered an effective and impactful commandeer on the battlefield. It was becoming apparent, however, that this sort of suicidal courage was going to be a relic on the modern battlefield of the future, that strategy, resources and technology were soon going to be the overwhelming influences going forward.
The film moves in the first ten minutes (Of an overall running time of 2 hours and 20 minutes) from it’s Civil War preamble to a one-on-one setting under a Military tent at night, presumably in the Spring of 1865 near somewhere along the Potomac River. The two Men drawn into conversation are Shaw as Custer and gruff voiced Lawrence Tierney (The criminal mastermind in “Reservoir Dogs”) as General Sheridan, one of America’s Highest-ranking Generals during and after the Civil War. Sheridan is portrayed as a cold-blooded corporate mouthpiece, he just delivers the assignments to his Generals with no wiggle room for debate or conjecture, the gig is what it is. The film’s glib and gallant portrayal of American History takes a sudden cynical turn when the two Men discuss Custer’s post-Civil War future in the American Military.
Custer informs Sheridan that he wants more action as an Army General; babysitting forts and arsenals at peacetime holds no interest for him. Sheridan reminds Custer that it is now 1865 and the United States is no longer in armed conflict with the Confederates or any foreign powers, the only action that Sheridan would have for Custer would be to send him West and have him intimidate, essentially attempt to bulldoze and kill if need be Native American Indian tribes who stand in the way of burgeoning American business interests. Sheridan reminds Custer that although his command would be more like police action work, if he tangles with tribes such as the Cheyenne, the Sioux and the Lakota, he would be engaged against what International Military circles considered to be at the time some of the fiercest light Calvary in the World. The occasionally daring script by Julian Zimet and Bernard Gordon is not shy about exposing the US Military’s disdain, marginalization and abject fear of the fighting capabilities of the Native American tribes.
When the film begins it’s depiction(s) of the last Eleven years of Custer’s life, the majority of these scenes take place in the great Plains, several action scenes are staged using some new filming technique Hollywood tech-heads were diddling with in the mid-to-late 1960’s. Cinematographer Cecilio Paniagua filmed this in what appears to be Cinemascope, many of the film’s broad outdoor scenes are impressive looking, some seem to have been shot from a helicopter. Two of the better action scenes involve the Indians taking revenge on the settlers and miners, first a scene in which the Native Americans attack a mining town celebrating the Fourth of July, and secondly the Indians attacking and destroying a train full of wealthy white folks attempting to travel over a gorge.
When the film begins it’s chronological portrayal of Custer’s life out West, we first get an enchanting and romantic Riverboat ride with the General and his adoring and elegant wife Elizabeth (played by Mary Ure), a lovely night time sequence, the filmmakers do well in fashioning the look of the latter half of the 19th century in the United States, the majestic night shots of the Riverboat speak to a veil of American nostalgia and grandiosity. Custer arrives in the Dakotas and is immediately treated to a scene of miners being tortured and killed by Indians. As Custer watches events unfold, he turns to his Military underlings as they watch the helpless miners plunge to their deaths, “is this a show for us?”, he remarks. Shaw as Custer seems to respect the Indians as fellow warriors over the miners, the latter of which he views dimly as greedy opportunists who want the Military to protect them while they get wealthy. As the earlier scene with Sheridan portends, the gig the Army has offered Custer offends his sense of heroism; he’s just the leader of organized thugs defending the “rights” of American citizens who dream of being capitalists on land that wasn’t even official United States land yet. Custer was there to clear Native Americans off of land that the United States Government had deemed the Native Americans had no sovereign claim to for the US to respect.
The scene with the miners early on, when they are tied to wagons with Horses who are intent on galloping downhill as fast as possible as if they had been struck in the ass with a flaming arrow and didn’t respond to verbal commands like “Whoa, there!”, “Slow Down Boy!”, etc was shot by the Director and Cinematographer with a descending effect, as if we the audience are tied to the wagon as well and we are all shooting down a winding road next to a cliff. We are meant to feel the growing terror of racing down the road with no brakes, one of the miners gets free enough that he can steer the wagon upside down, but how long do you expect that to last? If this scene I am describing sounds like cinematic cheap thrills, that would be apt. The filmmakers attempt this same cinematic effect in two to three later sequences involving different harrowing situations.
From this point on, the film rotates between the General’s occasional scenic spates of home-life with his idyllic wife (The film reminds us that the real Custer could have given up his barbaric adventures and exchanges with the Native Americans at any point and had a perfectly normal life with his Wife and been a bureaucratic General), the conversations amongst Custer and Military personnel about how to deal with the Native Americans, and the back and forth attacks between the Native Americans and the US Military, the US attacks typically consisting of US soldiers attacking Indian villages at dawn on sleeping villagers. Custer is shown in the village massacres to be less of a racist and more of an attention whore and cold-blooded murderer. While verbally seeming to detest the idea of murdering sleeping villagers, he doesn’t appear to possess Human empathy for them, they are merely in the way of his ambitions for adrenaline and glory. He shoots fleeing villagers with the impunity of a pest controller.
The musical score, by Bernardo Segall, is a paradox, the music provides an uneasy tension at times, during a couple of scenes the music almost appears satiric, echoing somber splashes of gallantry and murky morality. Two of Custer’s contemporaries, Majors Benteen and Reno, are played to contrast and their fates are curious and ironic. In the film, Benteen, a captain played by Jeffrey Hunter, has a cautious and benevolent attitude toward the Native American tribes of the Lakota, Sioux and Cheyenne. Though the real-life Benteen has been implicated in participating in the real-life Washita Village massacre of 1868, Benteen is easily portrayed as the kindest and most sympathetic of the Army personnel in the film, the real Major Benteen lived into his late 60s. Major Reno, played by Ty Hardin, is portrayed more as a sloppy racist, neither man was considered to be eagerly on Custer’s wavelength. Custer personally attacks Reno early on in the movie for being a career drunk, while Benteen and Custer clash over what Benteen believes to be Custer’s lack of human empathy in dealing with the Native Americans. When the events of Little Bighorn transpire, it is not hard to understand why the real-life Benteen and Reno left Custer out to dry; one man potentially had an axe to grind with Custer personally while the other may not have wanted to sacrifice the Men under his charge to assist Custer who had foolishly gone in ahead of everyone thinking the Native Americans would meekly comply with the US Military’s demand that the War Party that had assembled there had to move on for the sake of more mining in the area of the Black Hills.
At one point, Custer and his wife are called to Washington, D.C. for inquests and job offers, and we become privy to Custer’s old-fashioned luddite leanings. During an inquest before one of the US Houses of Legislatures, Custer speaks of corruption throughout the Military and Government and names the Brother of the current sitting US president at the time, US Grant, as a person of interest involved in the corruption. If that weren’t enough, the Big Military Brass essentially offer Custer a step up the corporate Military ladder, yet it does not involve being a part of physical action, Custer’s forte. They want him to be a caretaker, a planner, a bureaucrat. This is what moving up involves, out of harm’s way, but embracing the role of a power-broking fat cat, Custer wanted none of it. When General Sheridan shows Custer the latest in Military hardware, a machine gun mounted inside an iron rail car, Custer is disgusted, he states that machines will replace Men on the battlefield, where is the honor in that?
Shaw as Custer is sturdy, he moves and looks so much like Richard Harris that only when he speaks with that cocksure steadfast delivery that you know it’s Robert Shaw. Custer, as written by screenwriters Zimet and Gordon, is a wealth of contrasts, a Man so consumed with his need for heroic attention that it led his character astray morally and his strategic arrogance may have led to his early demise. His bold brazen style made him effective, but also rubbed his peers the wrong way and his lack of humanity and compassion made bitter enemies of his Native American counterparts towards him. Kieron Moore is Dull Knife, a Northern Cheyenne Chief who Custer has several run-ins with throughout the film. There is not much mention of Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse in this. In one scene involving Dull Knife and Custer, Custer dictates to Dull Knife what’s coming in the future. Custer makes an analogy between the US Military taking land from the Cheyenne because the US Military is bigger and meaner just as the Cheyenne took land from weaker tribes in the past. Though Custer’s speech to Dull Knife seems crude and arrogant, from Custer’s plain speak, Dull Knife acknowledges that he understands what Custer is saying, he comprehends the concept of change at the behest of a barrel of a gun.
Though this is a two-hour and twenty minute movie, getting through to the climactic battle is worth it, Director Siodmak cashes in a lot of chips here at the end and it is effective and memorable. As most Historians will reiterate, Custer in his haste and ignorance, was to be part of a three-group US Military confrontation of a large group of Cheyenne, Lakota and Sioux warriors who were representing a mass of thousands of Native Americans who did not wish to live on reservations at the behest of the US Government. The movie at this point displays Custer’s mind frame concerning what he had seen in Washington in regards to the changing battlefield technology. According to the movie, Custer felt at this point that real-life glory on the battlefield was over for him and for future society as well. That machines will soon dominate the battlefield. So, in arriving at the rendezvous point early, Custer saw no harm, he’s a star in his mind and he’s going to tell the Native Americans to get moving, that the machines of their destruction will be close at hand soon.
But a twist occurs. The Native Americans realize Custer is exposed and he only brought 200 some odd Men with him, reinforcements are miles away. Custer’s speech to them about the end of the warrior culture might have well have been in Dutch, they had no idea what he was talking about. They only know that they are fighting and dying for their existence and those of their loves ones. Custer and Dull Knife meet on the battlefield, Custer’s group of over 200 Men is vastly outnumbered, Benteen and Reno’s groups of the same strength and numbers are miles and miles away. Dull Knife, with years of frustrating tragedy and betrayal at the hands of Custer and the White Man firmly in his memory, tells Custer after Custer’s verbal pitch to motivate the Native Americans to move on falls on deaf ears, “Today is a good day to fight.” Shaw as Custer in this moment, looks downward, in a moment of grim acknowledgement, he appears to know his fate may be sealed.
ABC TV did an interesting mini-series back in the 1990’s called “Son of the Morning Star” in which the events of Custer’s life are told by both Elizabeth Custer (played by Rosanna Arquette, Gary Cole plays the General) and Kate Big Head, a Cheyenne Woman (played by Buffy Sainte-Marie). The White Woman describes Custer as brilliant and brave. The Cheyenne woman describes watching Custer murder her people in a village massacre. Son of the Morning Star was a nickname given to Custer for leading Indian village massacres at dawn, when the sun was rising.
The Battle of Little Big Horn is fantastically staged in “Custer of the West”. It almost looks like German impressionist silent theater with it’s use of space and shadows. We see many Blue-uniformed cavalry go down in a hail of arrows. The battle scenes are extremely well spaced, the shots of the spread of the battle are engaging, though the battle scenes were shot in Spain, the use of terrain and the cloud cover is indelible, the viewer has every reason to believe they are looking at the Dakotas.
I learned through researching this film that Custer was reputed to be killed in the end (after being hit with two bullets) by a Female Cheyenne Woman named Cheyenne Buffalo Calf Road Woman. According to Historians, Custer had been identified as personally killing quite a few of the Native Americans in the Village massacres he oversaw. He was on the personal hit lists of quite a few Native Americans. Due to his prior actions against members of her family, Cheyenne Buffalo Calf Road Woman was awarded the honor of finishing Custer off by tribal chieftains. “Custer of the West” describes Custer’s death in dramaticized terms, Shaw finishes with a flourish. This is an even-handed biopic told in a Spaghetti Western idiom, it’s use of silent film techniques for it’s action sequences have stayed in my mind since I viewed the film, a thorough delivery system for images I shan’t soon forget.
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