BBC2 Wild West drama-doc

[Banned]

Hello

I've put the entire movie on my website, with other videos related to the LBH:

www.custerwest.org/videos.htm

I am watching Toby Stephen's movie, it's very accurate and very interesting... BCC is much better than many, if not any US documentary on the subject (except "Betrayal at LBH", which showed good points on Benteen and Reno)

Everyone should watch this documentary

[Banned]

The attack on the flanks of the village is not accepted as a logical solution for Custer's movement on the hills - I think it's a mistake. However, talking about Wolf Tooth's 60 warriors on the hills is really impressive.

Tony Blair's guys just got it right - at this point !

[harpskiddie]

I seem to be missing the last part of the video, but the first seven parts are decent enough, certainly as good as any recent PBS/History Channel proferrings, and with a few added tidbits for those who enjoy a filip of truth with their pap.

As for Bouyer's attempted surrender [which is among the missing parts for me], there is at least one Indian account relating exactly such a scenario, with two warriors killing him despite his protestations of kinship. I have my doubts that such an event actually occurred, but there is some evidence for the scene.

Gordie

[Mike Powell]

I assume this production is copyright material and the distribution of it posted above is without license. If so, wonder how those on this board who do or intend to benefit from their own copyright material feel about this? My view is its theft justified on "Everybody's doing it"

Yours,

Mike Powell

[Diane Merkel]

I agree with you, Mike, and it's not the first time this person has been accused of copyright infringement. However, he's getting the show from youtube.com, and I'm wondering how they get away with it.

[elisabeth]

As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, the DVD comes out on March 5th. Not much patience required, then, to get hold of the film the legal way.

[harpskiddie]

I finally saw the ending, and must say that the whole thing was rather well done, given the obvious lack of budget. One nice feature was that the talking heads were kept to a minimum level of intrusion.

Gordie

[elisabeth]

You're right -- so often the talking heads are the main event, with tiny bursts of drama just as illustration. With this one, we were never distracted from the story.

They got so much of the look and period detail right that it would be lovely to see the same crew turned loose on a bigger-budget version. (Any movie moguls out there listening?) And myself, I'd be happy to see them keep the same Custer, Kellogg, and Benteen. All three strikingly good, I thought.

On TV here the BBC followed what's become its usual infuriating practice of squashing the cast list over to one side of the screen in order to trail the next programme, so for anyone who's wondering, Kellogg was played by Alan Cox and Benteen by Stephen Billington.

Apparently the series is likely to be shown in the U.S. on the Discovery channel sometime later this year.

P.S. Having just re-watched it on video, I find I've done the BBC an injustice. The credits were indeed virtually unreadable, but the squashing was done by a photo of Custer rather than a trailer for the next programme. So apologies, BBC.

Two other things struck me in re-watching. First, their attention to detail was even better than I first thought -- they'd even picked up on troopers' pants being reinforced with canvas. Fantastic! The second was that they must have shot far, far more battle footage than appears on screen. There's a very brief shot, in the 3 seconds devoted to the C/I/L action, of a buckskin-coated officer on a buckskin horse and the two being felled simultaneously. Unlikely that they'd go to the trouble and expense of a stunt horse just for an effect that you miss if you blink for a second, so my guess is that they'd originally intended to go into the Keogh episode to some degree. That whole segment of the battle is effectively missing from the one-hour documentary. As far as the casual viewer is concerned, Custer faced the entire Sioux nation with just two companies(!). So ... perhaps they might one day be persuaded to re-cut the thing to give us the whole battle. Or at the very least, we can hope that some of the missing footage may have made it into the DVD ...

[elisabeth]

Re the above: according to Amazon, the DVD running time is just 174 minutes, so it can only be the three films as screened -- no additional features. (Though the BBC itself says it's a double DVD ... Odd.)

So ... I've just embarrassed myself by writing to the Radio Times to put in a plea for a feature-length DVD version restoring the missing footage. (It'd be more sensible to write to the BBC themselves, of course, but they make it as difficult as they can to do so.) They may or may not publish the letter -- I quite hope they don't -- but just possibly they might pass on the comment. Hope so.

[crzhrs]

Harps:

According to SOMS, Bouyer was wounded and found by 2 Lakota warriors. He said his back was broken and for them to kill him . . . which they did.

Far different than the BBC version in which he seems totally unharmed and begging for his life.

According to Curley Boyer was wounded when he told him to leave.

[crzhrs]

Elisabeth:

Where can the DVD be purchased?

[elisabeth]

Either from the BBC Shop (see link earlier n this thread) or, now, from Amazon -- you might have to go to amazon.co.uk for it, though. Amazon is cheaper, and I'm not sure if the BBC Shop does overseas shipping, so Amazon's your best bet.

[blaque]

CH,

Yes, that story of a wounded Boyer asking to be finished up is the only known version (I think) of Boyer's death. The scene in the documentary seems better to correspond to Eagle’s Elk story of a wounded Sioux scout begging for his life, who was told by his killer that if wanted not to be killed, he shouldn’t have come to kill Indians (or words to that effect). But apparently this happened in the valley, so the scout was probably Isaiah Dorman.

[crzhrs]

Apparently there are some "holes" in this BBC version. From what little I've seen via the scenes, it does appear to be very good though, but I'll have to wait to see the entire video without jumping around to get a better idea.

As with SOMS (which happens to be the most accurate of all LBH movies) there were descrepancies there also. Like the Mr. Rivers character killed during Reno's retreat. We know that should have been Charley Reynolds.

[alanw]

Hi,

Interesting docudrama. I think it suffered because they tried to cram too much into to little time. And yes there were serious mistakes - Reno retreating to Reno Hill and Benteen arriving AFTER the Indians had left.!!!

Alan