Word: willingham
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Screenplay by CALDER WILLINGHAM, JOANTEWKESBURYand ROBERT ALTMAN
...Glory, shot by Stanley Kubrick in 1957 (when he still cared about human affairs), is one of the most unillusioned films about war made in this or any other country. Derived from the French soldier mutinies in the Vimy Ridge in World War I, the screenplay by Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson is a paradigm of military disfunction. An ambitious general, intrigued by an offer of promotion, leads an already battle-weary battalion on a suicide mission. But the battalion falls back from their advance. Enraged, the general orders three men shot for cowardice as examples for his entire army...
Little Big Man. Arthur Penn's latest film may well be his best. Scripted by Galder Willingham from Thomas Berger's novel, it spans the 121-year life of Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) to arrive at a truly epic vision of what the American experience is all about. As in Bonnie and Clyde and Alice's Restaurant, Penn's hero searches painfully for a way of life that will bring order and meaning to human existence. Crabb tries everything; he becomes an Indian, a white man, a con man, a drunk, a husband, a gun man, a resident...
Would that the film makers had Chief George's ingenuousness or Hoffman's technique. For Calder Willingham (End as a Man) has provided a scenario that begins with robust rawhide humor, turns to profundity−and then collapses into petulant editorial. In the era of occupied Alcatraz, surely it is no news that the white man spoke with forked tongue, that the first Americans were maltreated as the last savages. The Battle of Little Bighorn, which should be the film's climax, is its weakest point. General Custer is pure Pig on the Prairie, babbling insanely...
Meanwhile, the judicial proceedings are grinding on. Medina and Willingham will report to Fort McPherson, Ga. All of the others accused have been ordered to Fort Meade, Md., where First Army Commander Lieut. General Jonathan Seaman will direct formal investigations that may or may not lead to courts-martial...