| Son of the Morning Star | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mike Robe |
| Written by | Evan S. Connell Melissa Mathison |
| Starring | Gary Cole |
| Music by | Craig Safan |
| Cinematography | Kees Van Oostrum |
| Editing by | Benjamin A. Weissman |
| Distributed by | ABC |
| Release date(s) | February 3, 1991 |
| Running time | 187 minutes |
| Country | US |
| Language | English |
Son of the Morning Star (1991) is a TV movie released by Chrysalis based on Evan S. Connell's best-selling book of the same name. It starred Gary Cole (General Custer) and featured Dean Stockwell (General Philip Sheridan), Roseanna Arquette (Elizabeth Custer), Rodney A. Grant (Crazy Horse), and Buffy Sainte-Marie (voice of Kate Bighead).
The film, in two parts, begins in 1876 when the Terry-Gibbon column relieves the remnants of the 7th Cavalry that had survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn. They discover Custer's battalion has been annihilated, and the film 'flashes back' and tells Custer's story from the point of view/narrative of his wife, Elizabeth, beginning with the Kansas campaign of the mid-1860s. Concurrently, the Indian perspective is told through the narrative of Kate Bighead, a young Cheyenne woman, who encountered Custer on several occasions. Kate Bighead's narrative is also used to describe events like the Fetterman Massacre and the Battle of Washita River, as is Elizabeth Custer's, to give the viewer a balanced point of view. It is widely regarded as the only film to accurately depict the Battle of the Little Bighorn, as it shows the soldiers being over-run shortly after taking up rifle positions, rather than being surrounded by Indians on horseback and fighting until the bitter end as have popular myth and previous films. The Indians are depicted as a disillusioned people, angrily defending their homes.