Criticature: "Touche pas à la femme blanche" ('Don't Touch the White Woman!' (1974))

If indifference is a disease then one might start analogize the artists of society as the doctors who fight it. And as far as this one loaded yawp is concerned, there’s about as much lasting power as a handful of Walgreens tylenol. 

This Franco-Italian Western set in the heart of 1960s Paris takes an absurdist look at the Battle of Little Bighorn in a way that is about as subtle as a scalping.  As irresistible as all that sounds, it makes for typical bleeding heart boredom.

Perhaps it’s a bit much to call the attempt contrived. After all, for a world that had been weaned on Monument Valley and the nobility of the Wild West, this five-finger death punch might have been precisely what the doctor ordered. At least, given the prevailing political climate.

But the sheer silliness of the movie’s brutality betrays its utter lack of objectivity. The end result is not so much a morality play but an attempt to rewrite history from another direction. From easy swipes at President Nixon, banana republics and Vietnam, it all just feels so tired by the time the goose-stepping Custer finally buys the farcical farm. 

***

Directed by:
Marco Ferreri

Written by: 
 Rafael Azcona Marco Ferreri

Produced by:
Michel Piccoli
Jean-Pierre Rassam
François Rochas.................................associate producer
Alain Sarde........................................associate producer
Jean Yann

Cast:
Catherine Deneuve..............................Marie-Hélène de Boismonfrais
Marcello Mastroianni...........................George A. Custer
Michel Piccoli......................................Buffalo Bill
Philippe Noiret....................................Gen. Terry
Ugo Tognazzi......................................Mitch
Alain Cuny..........................................Sitting Bull
Serge Reggiani....................................The Mad Indian
Darry Cowl........................................Major Archibald
Monique Chaumette...........................Sister Lucie
Daniele Dublino..................................Hermine
Henri Piccoli.......................................Sitting Bull's Father
Franca Bettoja....................................Rayon de Lune
Paolo Villaggio...................................The CIA agent
Franco Fabrizzi..................................Tom