Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson

9/21/2021

_**Tedious arty Western; thoroughly UNentertaining**_ Released in 1976 and directed by Robert Altman, "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" stars Paul Newman as Buffalo Bill Cody, the star of his famous "Wild West Show" in the shadow of the Rockies in 1885. After Chief Sitting Bull of Little Big Horn fame (Frank Kaquitts) arrives with his Number One (Will Sampson), Cody is irked that the chief isn't a slaughtering savage, but is silently heroic and honorable. Cody fires him, but relents when star attraction Annie Oakley (Geraldine Chaplin) sympathizes with Sitting Bull. Then President Grover Cleveland (Pat McCormick ) visits with his entourage. This is revisionist Western, a "message movie" that Altman uses to criticize popular ideas or myths about the Old