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"Das Mädchen Rosemarie"
Das Mädchen Rosemarie (1996) is a German made for TV based on the true story of modern-day courtesan Rosemarie Nittribit. An orphan, she escaped reform school, and managed to become the mistress of one of the new German industrialists in early 50's reconstruction Germany. He kept her well, but she wanted marriage, not really understanding why she was not a part of his social circle. Under the tutelage of a French businessman, she managed to sleep with all of the prominent industrialists, thus infiltrating their social circle. She taped their trysts for the Frenchman, who hoped to use the tapes to blackmail the Germans into a very favorable business deal. She never gave up on the idea of marrying the first industrialist. She was eventually found murdered in her apartment, and the killer was never caught.
Rosemarie was played by Nina Hoss in an excellent portrayal. The exposure is all by her, and includes a full frontal, buns, and additional breast exposure all in good light. The DVD quality is very good, and, other than optional dubbed English and subtitles, is bare bones. The dubbed English was UK, with obvious UK accents, which seemed out of place, and I ended up listening to the German with English subtitles. Hoss lights up the screen, helping to make what would otherwise be a very slow 127 minutes bearable. The production standards are very high, which is frequently the case with German TV, but there was not enough material of interest for 127 minutes of screen time. C-.
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Little Big Man (1970)
In drawing a parallel to recent films, I'd suppose that the
single most comparable film to Little Big Man is Forrest Gump. Just
as Forrest passed through our times and mirrored them, encountering
every important movement and every significant person in each era,
Jack Crabb lived through the Wild West, met the most famous
characters, and had his own version of the whole saga, in which he
kept encountering the same people from earlier episodes
The film starts in 1970, with a reporter interviewing Mr Crabb
(Dustin Hoffman, in one of his great performances), the sole white
survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, who is 121 years old at
the time of the interview. In the course of his tall tale about the
taming of the west, he recounts his career as a Cheyenne Indian, a
bible thumper, a snake-oil salesman, a gunfighter, a drunk, and just
about everything else one could be in those days. Since he was a
white man raised by the Cheyenne, and spoke both languages fluently,
he moved back and forth between the two worlds.
His story is great when it is being funny. I laughed out loud at
the sight of Dustin Hoffman dressed as a gunfighter. He really was
the fastest gun in the West, and also the surest shot. Only one
little thing kept him from achieving gunfighter immortality. He
didn't like shooting at any living things.
The strangest comic portrayal in the film, in moments both
hilarious and sad, was ol' George Armstrong Custer. Richard Mulligan
brought all his usual pomposity and nervous mannerisms to the role,
playing Custer as a man who was not merely self-absorbed, but just
plain insane. In this way, the film actually manages to treat the
battle of Little Big Horn as a comic event, with Custer walking
around on foot in his buckskins, babbling away at the endless hordes
of Sioux and Cheyenne attacking him, oblivious to the fact that he
had just led the U.S. Army to what is still the most complete defeat
in its history.
On the other hand, the film turns completely serious at times,
the most affecting moments coming during its portrayal of the
massacre of Washita, or as it is sometime called, the Battle of the
Washita. Custer and his men attacked a sleeping Indian village on
Indian lands. The chief of this group, Black Kettle, had always been
peaceful, and had been assured by the commanding officer of the
territory that he had nothing more to fear when on reservation land.
Black Kettle flew a Stars and Stripes over his teepee, as well as a
white flag of peace.
General Sheridan, Custer's immediate superior and friend, did not
see the Indian situation in quite the same light as the territory
commander. He wanted a preventive action to severely impair the
Cheyenne's ability to wage war. So Custer's men rode in to Black
Kettle's village one day before dawn, with the Garryowen playing,
and created a swath of destruction, which included the slaughtering
of about 900 Indian ponies. The film portrays that particular act as
madness, but killing the ponies actually made military sense. It
would be like destroying their tanks in modern terms. Custer
also destroyed or expropriated all their ammunition (even arrows),
and all their winter food supplies. Those Indians who were not
killed or captured were stranded without food and ponies, somewhere
in a snow-bound plain.
Custer claimed that something like 90 Cheyenne braves were killed
that day. The Indian account was 11 dead warriors, with all the rest
of the corpses being women, old people, and children. Custer was a
brave warrior, but was no mental giant (he graduated last in his
class at West Point). A peaceful village of 51 lodges would be
unlikely to hold enough warriors to produce 90 casualties even at a
100% kill rate, so his claim was ludicrous, but the Indian version
probably also leaves some room for dispute. Certainly, the villagers
were not just as completely peaceful as they pretended to be, since
the 51 tents were accompanied by an arsenal large enough to defeat
France (4000
arrows, 500 pounds of lead, 500 pounds of gunpowder, and 875 horses).
In fact, Custer's lack of control of one of his flanks led that
group into a precarious encounter with a large band of different
Indians camped nearby, who responded to the sounds coming from Black
Kettle's camp. Overall, in a pre-dawn attack on a sleeping
village of fifty tents filled with women and children, Custer
managed to lose the lives of two officers and 19 enlisted men. Not
only was it not much of a battle, but it wasn't even a very
efficient massacre!
If you aren't familiar with Custer's career, he still remains to
this day the youngest man ever to win the ranks of Brigadier General
(age 23) and Major General (age 25) in the U.S. Army, by his
aggressive tactics in the Civil War. He must have been impressive in
the Civil War, because he was considered important enough to be
present in the courthouse at the Appomatox surrender, and was later
presented the actual table upon which the surrender document had
been executed.
Those impressive ranks he attained were wartime ranks, however.
After the war ended, he went back to the rank of Captain, and never
reached a higher rank than Lieutenant Colonel in the regular
peacetime army. (He was still entitled to use the title of "General"
in certain situations). In about a decade on the plains, he did
nothing significant on the battlefield in the struggles against the
Indians. His only memorable contribution to the army after the Civil
War was his addition of a musical band to the 7th Cavalry, and his
selection of the Garryowen as the official regimental air.
Many people do not realize that the famous Battle of Little Big
Horn was yet another similar attack by Custer, an unprovoked act of
aggression on an Indian encampment. This time, however, he had not
attacked peaceful Black Kettle, but Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse,
two chiefs who were actively resisting the U.S. Government's
attempts to place white settlers on Sioux land for an expected gold
rush. The nature of the enemy was not the worst news, however.
Custer knew that the Indians could be formidable, but he was
supposed to be one prong of a three-pronged attack, and the other
two prongs were nowhere to be seen. The impetuous Custer had
outraced the infantry, and the third unit had been detoured by
battles with hostiles, so Custer ended up leading his 264 troopers
into a battle with 5000 Sioux and Cheyennes.
By the way, Custer was wearing buckskins that day, not Cavalry
Blues (a detail which the movie got right), and his hair was cut
short that day for battle (a detail which the movie got wrong,
perhaps intentionally, since the long blond hair made for more
impressive cinema).
One of the interesting elements of the film is that the Indians
are not really portrayed as romantic noble savages. They are every
bit as fucked-up as the whites. Old Lodge Skins, the old man who is
the real hero of the film, is peaceful and compassionate, but nutty
as a fruitcake. Indians, like whites, are seen to be troubled by
nagging wives, homosexuality, arguments, jealousy, weakness, lust,
and all other human strengths and weaknesses.
In fact, although this film is essentially a comedy, and Crabb's
version of the Wild West is supposed to be a tall tale, it is
possible to feel that what he has revealed is "truer" than many
versions which pass as history. Custer wasn't really anything like
the way he was portrayed here, but it's eminently reasonable to
argue that many people could have seen him that way, including Jack
Crabb (and, by the way, President Grant, who also thought Custer was
a schmuck).
The film is a B-. Very entertaining film. A hilarious revisionist
look at the legends of the Old West, great performances by Dustin
Hoffman and Richard Mulligan, and also some heart-rending moments
which will get deep inside of you. It's hard to keep your eyes dry
when Crabb watches his sweet-natured Indian wife get gunned down at
Washita, just hours after giving birth.
Nudity report: There's Dustin Hoffman's butt and some nudity from
unidentified Indian women, including a distant frontal.
Sadly, the DVD is bare-bones, although the transfer is a solid
widescreen anamorphic, 2.35:1. I would have enjoyed a special
edition of this movie.
Mailbox:
Hey Scoop,
Thought I would pass this link on to you and all your visitors.
Syndicated talk show host Tom Leykis (
www.blowmeuptom.com )
is known for his penchant for signing his fans breasts and their ass
after he has spanked them of course. He also advocates having women
flash their breasts on Fridays. The link is the photographers web
site who is the official photographer for Tom when he is remote. Be
warned that there are a lot of photos and it will take some time to
browse. Also be warned that there are some pretty ugly ones mixed in
with the cuties. Hope everyone has fun!
http://www.jasonkirkphotos.com/low/web_leykis_dun/index.htm
Scoops
Just letting you guys know that the collages of Lee
Grant from her topless scene (In Red Ryder) definitely ARE her..
her face is shown just before he pulls her shirt up... no cuts,
edits, etc...
Other crap:
Here
are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.
- The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the
review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
- If there is a white asterisk, it means that
there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined
there might be something else of interest.
- A blue asterisk indicates the review is written
by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick
Locke, or somebody else besides me)
- If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too
ashamed to admit it.
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