Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson ** (1976, Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Kevin McCarthy) – Classic Movie Review 7532

Producer-director Robert Altman takes an ironic look at American history in the 1976 Western movie Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson, satirising American popular culture with the help of a top cast. It is suggested by the play Indians by Arthur Kopit, weirdly swapping a neat one-word title for a really messy long one.

Paul Newman is fine as the one character that the film develops, the bewhiskered Colonel William F Cody, portrayed as a rogue and a fraud, who has hired Chief Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) as a non-speaking sideshow for his Wild West show. However, some of the other talented actors (including newsman Burt Lancaster, showman Joel Grey, barkeep Bert Remsen, publicist Kevin McCarthy, interpreter Will Sampson, Harvey Keitel as Cody’s nephew, Geraldine Chaplin as Annie Oakley) force a respectful look.

But Altman and Alan Rudolph, his co-scripter on the story and screenplay, do not bring Arthur Kopit’s play Indians to full life as a movie, and it is all constrictingly filmed on one location in Alberta, Canada. It was shot on the Stoney Indian Reservation.

Also in the cast are Denver Pyle, John Considine, Pat McCormick, Allan F Nicholls and Shelley Duvall.

Newman was not very fortunate in his couple of films with Altman, but at least this is much better than Quintet (1970).

The film won the Golden Bear at the 26th Berlin International Film Festival in 1976, but Altman refused it to protest after executive producer Dino De Laurentiis re-cut the film.

The film runs 123 minutes, 105 minutes (1979) or 135 minutes (video).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7532

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