Cultural depictions of George Armstrong Custer

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George Armstrong Custer (1839 – 1876) was a United States Army cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. He was defeated and killed by the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Contents

[edit] Films and Television

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Please improve this article if you can (January 2008).

Custer has been played in motion pictures by Francis Ford (1912 twice), Ned Finley (1916), Dustin Farnum (1926), John Beck (1926), Clay Clement (1933). John Miljan (1936), Frank McGlynn (1936), Paul Kelly (1940), Addison Richards (1940), Ronald Reagan (1940), Errol Flynn (1941), James Millican (1942), Sheb Wooley (1952), Douglas Kennedy (1954), Britt Lomond (1958), Philip Carey (1965), Leslie Nielsen (1966), Robert Shaw (1967), Wayne Maunder (1967 & 1990), Richard Mulligan (1970), Marcello Mastroianni (1974), Ken Howard (1977), James Olson (1977), Gary Cole (1991), Josh Lucas (1993), Peter Horton (1996) and William Shockley (1997).

  • They Died with Their Boots On, a 1941 film starring Errol Flynn. Made as World War II was looming, it is a heart-tugging morale-booster that presents frontier history in an idealized light.
  • Custer was a short-lived 1967 television series starring Wayne Maunder in the title role. The 17 episodes have been re-issued on dvd. IMDB Page
  • Custer was a recurring character on the TV drama series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, a 1990s TV drama that presented a distorted and non-historical portrayal of Custer and the realities of the American frontier.
  • In the 1967 movie Custer of the West, Robert Shaw depicts Custer as an Indian sympathizer, having disagreements with his superiors about fighting the Indians, but duty bound as an officer of the U.S. Cavalry to enforce orders given to him.
  • Custer (played by Richard Mulligan) was a major character in the 1970 film Little Big Man. Dustin Hoffman's character in the film has many encounters with him and in the end, Hoffman's character claims he is responsible for Custer's death at Little Big Horn. Custer is depicted as an insane megalomaniac.
  • Custer was played by Andrew Garringer (in a walk-on role) in the TV miniseries "North & South" (1986).
  • Custer was portrayed by Jonathan Scharfe on the mini-series Into the West (2005).

Fictional Portrayals

A number of Westerns have featured characters that, while not specifically Custer, are very closely based on his character. Some of the more noteworthy examples:

  • Fort Apache (1948, John Ford) featured Henry Fonda as Colonel Owen Thursday, a West Point-educated cavalryman who provokes a war with the Apache Indian chief Cochise and is killed in a suicidal charge and last stand, a la Custer. Similarities between Thursday and Custer include the following (a)Thursday is presented as having been a heroic Civil War cavalry leader (he is presented as genuinely talented - cf his ambush of the first Apache band, which is effective though takes unacceptable risks with his men's lives - but it is also suggested that his image is partly a matter of chance - being in the right place at the right time, while another officer who was late by chance is falsely accused of cowardice)(b) He is strongly concerned with self-promotion and getting a good press from Eastern newspapers (c) In the run-up to the battle with Cochise's Apaches he suggests dividing his forces to attack the main Indiasn encampment from two sides - as Custer did at Little Big Horn (d)His disastrous final battle features an attack which is repelled by Indian defenders, after which a remnant of the attackers occupies a circular defensive position but is overwhelmed and killed to the last man; a reserve unit survives in a defensive position on a ridge some distance from the main battlefield. Significant differences: Thursday is a widower with one daughter, whereas Custer was married but had no children with his wife. Thursday has no experience as an Indian fighter whereas Custer had take part in other Indian campaigns before the Little Big Horn.
  • The Glory Guys (1965, Arnold Laven) saw Andrew Duggan playing General Frederick McCabe, a US cavalry officer who leads his outfit in a suicidal campaign against the Apaches. The battle scenario in the climax is nearly identical to that at Little Bighorn.
  • Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002, Kelly Asbury/Lorna Cook), an animated film, features a story told from the perspective of a wild horse living on the American Frontier in the late 19th century. One of the major characters in the film, a U.S. Army officer known only as "the Colonel," is apparently based on Custer.

Mentions

  • Custer was mentioned in The Last Samurai. When Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) tells of the Battle of the Little Bighorn to the samurai leader, Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), Katsumoto admires Custer's bravery, declaring that Custer's demise was "a very good death."
  • Custer was also mentioned in We Were Soldiers, the film starring Mel Gibson in which a battalion of the 7th Cavalry (now Air Cavalry) is engaged in a battle with the North Vietnamese.
  • The Searchers has a deleted sequence which featured a Custer-like character leading the raid on the Comanche village where Ethan and Martin discover the body of Look.
  • In the 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, Custer is the primary subject of the latest book by Eli Cash (portrayted by Owen Wilson). Later, in an interview he states "Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't."
  • Custer was mentioned, often in less than elogious terms, by Jane Cannary in HBO's Deadwood.
  • Custer was mentioned when George Carlin does his Free Floating Hostility HBO special "Back In Town" in which Geroge mentions that Custer had a really bad hair day

[edit] Literature

[edit] Alternate history

The larger than life nature of Custer's life has made him a popular subject for several alternate history stories.

  • In The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer a Novel by Douglas C. Jones is set in an alternate history that takes as its point of departure that George Armstrong Custer did not die at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Suppose that, instead, he was found close to death at the scene of the defeat and was brought to trial for his actions. Blending fact and fiction, The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer tells us what might have happened at that trial as it brings to life the most exciting period in the history of the American West. It was made into a TV movie in 1977 with James Olson as Custer and Blythe Danner as his wife Libbie.
  • The short story Custer's Last Jump by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley is set in an alternate history that takes as its point of departure the use of aircraft in the American Civil War.
  • In Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 alternate history novels, Custer was not killed at the Little Bighorn, and became a Colonel in Kansas by 1881, chasing Indians and then doing battle with rebel Mormons in Utah Territory and an Anglo-Canadian column invading Montana in the Second Mexican War, becoming a war hero. In World War I, he led a tank offensive that crushed the Confederate States of America, and later became Governor-General of occupied Canada, dying of old age in early 1930.
  • Wes Anderson satirizes such portrayals of Custer-as-survivor in his film The Royal Tenenbaums, in which the character Eli Cash writes a book called “Old Custer".
  • In the collection of short alternate history stories Drakas!, Custer, the famed Yankee general known for "Custer's Last Stand" became persona non grata after refusing to lead troops against apparently overwhelming Indian forces. Drummed out of the military in America, he responded to the invitation of an old associate to go to Africa where the Draka empire was looking for experienced field officers.
  • In Percival Everett's novel God's Country, Custer is portrayed as a cross-dressing homosexual who eats raw meat.

[edit] Music

  • The first and probably best-known Custer pop song was Mister Custer ("Please Mister Custer, I don't wanna go"), a Billboard #1 novelty hit of 1958 for performer Larry Verne, in which "a voice from the rear" of the Seventh Cavalry charge asks "What'm I doing here?" and "Mind if I be excused the rest of the afternoon?" Words and Music by Fred Darian, Al DeLory, and Joe Van Winkle. In the UK, it was successfully covered by Charlie Drake.
  • General Custer's legacy was memorialized by the Italo Disco group "Swan" in their 1986 hit "General Custer".
  • Custer is prominently featured in Johnny Horton's 1960 song "Jim Bridger": "He spoke with General Custer and said 'Listen Yellow Hair/'The Sioux are a great nation, so treat 'em fair and square/'Sit in on their war council, don't laugh away their pride'/But Custer didn't listen, and at Little Big Horn Custer died."
  • Experimental-pop group Perky Custer derived their name from General George Custer and a generic version of Dr Pepper.
  • Influential American punk/alternative band The Minutemen mocked Custer's defeat and questioned the dignity - or lack thereof - in which he died during the Battle of the Little Bighorn, on the title track of their 1981 LP The Punch Line: "I believe when they found the body of General George A. Custer/Quilled like a porcupine with Indian arrows/He didn't die with any honor, dignity, or valor/I believe when they found the body of George A. Custer/American general, patriot, and Indian fighter/That he died with shit in his pants."
  • In The Arrogant Worms's song, History is Made By Stupid People, he is mocked by the line "General Custer's a national hero, for not knowing when to run."
  • On his 1996 album Cowboy Celtic, Canadian singer David Wilkie sang "Custer Died A-Runnin'".
  • On Johnny Cash's 1964 album 'Bitter Tears', the song 'Custer' had lines such as "General George A.Custer, oh, his yellow hair had lustre, But the General he don't ride well anymore, For now the General's silent he got barbered violent...".
  • A 1991 album, Blazon Stone, by the German Heavy Metal band Running Wild, includes a song about Custer's final battle called Little Big Horn. It starts with the words "Hey Mr. Custer, why did you dare the hand of fate?"
  • In the 1997 song 'Banner Year' ska band Five Iron Frenzy blames the death of Black Kettle, at the Battle of Washita, on Custer. "Where Custer shot and killed Black Kettle."
  • In the 1999 song Bulimic Beats by the Indie rock band Catatonia the line "A front line with labels where I witness custards last stand." is used.
  • American composer and musicologist Kyle Gann created a multi-media work titled Custer and Sitting Bull in which monologues by the two figures are recited, accompanied by a microtonal musical score and projected images from the time period. The piece premiered in Los Angeles in 1999 and played in New York to positive reviews in the year 2000.
  • The rapper Nelly mentioned Custer in his song "Heart of a Champion" off his 2004 album Sweat. The exact lyric was: "My last stance be a stance of a General Custer, I hot dog cause I can, I got the cheese and mustard."
  • Custer is one of only two Army officers to be referenced in the army song (the other is George Patton).

[edit] Video Games

  • A controversial adult video game known as Custer's Revenge was published for the Atari 2600. This game consisted of Custer moving from the left hand side of the screen to the right hand side of the screen through a barrage of arrows emerging from the top of the screen. Once Custer reaches the right hand side of the screen he sexually assaults a Native American woman who is tied to a cactus.
  • In the game Turok Custer is mentioned, when Turok finishes a flash-back about using a compound bow, Slade respondes, "That would be a great weapon, if we were fighting Colonel Custer".