LITTLE DULL MAN

LITTLE BIG MAN (1970)
a: Arthur Penn

LITTLE DULL MAN
MAD #147, December 1971
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker

Life of 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), a white man who goes back and forth among the white men and the Indians, and is ultimately responsible for the death of General Custer..

He is in an old age home interviewed by a historian (William Hickey), who looks a bit like Woody Allen. Flashback to Jack as a child, his family is killed on a wagon train by Pawnee warriors. He and his sister Caroline (Carole Androsky) are the only survivors and rescued by the Cheyenne. Caroline eventually leaves, and the Cheyenne, who refer to themselves as 'human beings', adopt him as one of their own. His grandfather is Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George). Little Horse (Robert Little Star), who is two-spirited—the American Indian equivalent to LGBTQ--doesn't show up until later. Jack has a sibling rivalry with Younger Bear (Cal Bellini) who he later saves.

Dan George was nominated for an Oscar that year. His eating a sandwich is a reference to an ad campaign at that time that for Levy's Jewish Rye with a picture of a Native American enjoying the bread.

Jack is called Little Big Man for rescuing Younger Bear from the Pawnee. When the white man comes to attack he reveals he is one of them and brought to “civilization” and adopted by the Pendrakes, a Christian family. Mrs. Pendrake (Faye Dunaway), the sexually frustrated wife, nurses him back to health, and they both almost give into temptation. He gets a job as a plant in Allardyce Merriweather (Martin Balsam)'s medicine show and they're tarred and feathered by a mob and their leader happens to be his natural sister Caroline, who it has been established passes as a man.

Sal Mineo had been in Cheyenne Autumn and Tonka. Mrs. Robinson is a reference to the older woman in The Graduate. The relationship between Faye Dunaway and Dustin Hoffman slightly parallels that though in real life she's younger than him.

Reunited with Caroline, she takes Jack under his wing and teaches him to be a gunfighter, which he turns out to be a natural at. In his new life, he's feared in the city as The Soda Pop Kid, and takes up a friendship with Wild Bill Hickok (Jeff Corey), who sees through his bad boy reputation. He gets married to Olga (Kelly Jean Peters), and they open up a business where everything is repossessed. They head out west where they're attacked by Cheyennes and she's kidnapped. As they're about to scalp him he reveals himself to be part of the tribe and is reunited with them.

This is where Little Horse (Robert Little Star) first comes in. MAD's homophobia fits with the times. He's drawn here as Tiny Tim because that was the most effeminate male celebrity of the time. Younger Bear has gone crazy and become a “contrary” who does everything backwards. Jack leaves again to search for Olga and meets up with General Custer (Richard Mulligan) and takes a job with him as a muleskinner because that's what Custer assumed he was. Jack sees Custer's army the imperialist warmongers they really are, and while hiding from them runs into Sunshine (Aimee Eccles) giving birth, he marries her, and he's back with the Cheyenne. Old Lodge Skins is now blind, Sunshine's sisters visit, he sleeps with them with her blessing.

Jack is exhausted from having sex with three women. Sunshine is killed, and he marries all her sisters. Old Lodge Skins has visions and sees the white man is going to attack again. When they do Jack vows revenge on Gen. Custer. He's rehired when they find him and he tries to kill Custer, but doesn't have the nerve. Now Jack's back in the city and the town drunk. Wild Bill finds him, has him cleaned up, and then is assassinated. Wild Bill's last wish is to give all his remaining money to a widow who's down on her luck and has become a prostitute. He goes to see the destitute prostitute who turns out to be Mrs. Pembrake. He runs into Mr. Merriweather who's still a con-man with even more prosthetics than before.

Custer keeps Jack on as a 'reverse barometer' scout, meaning that precisely because he can't trust him, thinking Jack's sort of like a mole, Jack will do the exact opposite of whatever he suggests. Jack is one step ahead, sort of a quadruple agent, and leads Custer into the battle of Little Big Horn.

In the background of the first panel it looks to be Jane Fonda raising a fist in solidarity with the Indians. Indochina was what Vietnam had been called. Ali McGraw was the star of Love Story.