I like Little Big Man, too, but:
a.) How old were you when you saw this? It’s got essentially genocide, bloody massacres, and other bad stuff. And it’s got sex, too.
b.) You Do realize that the story, despite having lots of accurate nasty historical facts, is also a parody of the Western Novel. This comes out more clearly in the novel, but you can’t watch all the coincidences and reunions and things like Jack Crabb’s “Gunfighter Phase” without realizing how much of a put-on it is.
It’s still awesome all these years later.
One of my all-time favorites, as I listed above. I saw it at the local theater, although it was at a matinee, not the original release.
as I got older, it bothered me that in some long shots Sinbad’s Arabian dhow (or whatever it was) became a British three-masted frigate, or that the overdubbing of some of the Spanish actors with English voices wasn’t convincing, but overall, the combination of Harryhausen’s “Dynamation” magic, Nathan Juran’s well-made script, and Bernard Hermann’s evocative musical score made for an effective combination. Torin Thatcher makes one helluva villain.
To see the same elements NOT working so well, watch the movie Jack the Giant Killer, which was a studied attempt to re-create the success of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad by re-using as much as possible – they got Kerwin Matthews to star again, got Torin Thatcher again as the villain, and Nathan Juran again to script and to direct. But they got Jim Danforth instead of Harryhausen, and his stuff wasn’t neatly as good (and his models were a lot less impressive). And they got someone else for the music.
I’ve got Seventh Voyage on VHS and DVD, and re-watch it frequently. I’ve got Jack, too, but I rarely re-watch it.
This is my answer. I was 8 when it came out, and it remained my favorite movie by a wide margin for the rest of my childhood.
Now, at 50, I still catch myself grinning from ear to ear whenever I happen to catch any part of it.
The Sting, which I saw in the theater when I was 11. I didn’t completely understand all the details of the con, but I got it well enough to think it was pretty cool. Also, I LOVED the music, and got the soundtrack to the movie for my birthday or Christmas. As I got older and re-watched it on video, I better understood all that was going on in the movie, and just liked it better and better. I still love the music too.
Dunno, maybe 13 when I first saw it. Watched it again in my 20s and fell in love with it. I can see it as a parade of cliches, but I prefer to watch it as an earlier telling of Forrest Gump. The individual periods of his life are quite silly by themselves, but brutally not-silly when viewed as a whole. Just like anyone else’s life.
My parents took me to see The Empire Strikes Back when I was 4. It was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, and although the bit with the tauntaun still bothers me some, I still really like the movie. A year or two later, my daddy took me to see a re-release of Lady and the Tramp, which I sometimes catch myself singing the songs from.
Smokey and The Bandit with Burt Reynolds, Jerry Reed, Sally Field and Jackie Gleeson, sometime in the second half of the 80s, when I was six or seven. My parents had taped it from TV, and I must have watched it at least ten times, probably more. It’s quite silly, but I still like it, and the theme song is great.
Picnic at Hanging Rock. Saw it as a kid (I’m assuming when it came out – I would have been seven) and it’s still a contender for my favorite movie ever.
Ah yes JustinC; I never can remember the name of that movie - Death Race 2000 - but always catch myself quoting something from it. Usually when someone is illegally crossing the road in front of me, I calculate the points I would earn . . .
Good one
I love Little Big Man. You can’t beat the Western Anthology Trifecta of Little Big Man, Jeremiah Johnson and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Great soundtracks on the last two also.
What did he say?
I’ve mentioned this before, but I saw TV broadcasts of the 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn back in ~first grade on a little black and white TV. It’s the only film I can recall that I can unequivocally date to that period and it was repeatedly broadcast, so I got repetition to reenforce my affection for it.
Still entertaining to this day, but having seen it on a b&w screen and knowing it was an old film, I always assumed it was a native b&w film. Not until I was an adult did I come discover it was gloriously, garishly technicolor ;).
“I don’t know. I just start moving when he says it.”
ETA: I’m semi-amazed that someone else here remembers that forgettable movie.
So was I when I saw your post. You obviously have exquisite comic sensibilities.
I saw it at the drive-in with a girlfriend when I was 16. I have two memories: Dean Martin with an arrow in his ass; and “Ha-roor har!” which I too have used ever since (although infrequently) for comic effect. Driving the lead car in a caravan of two, for example, complete with the solemn raised arm-flat palm gesture.
Interesting thing is I don’t remember the response you quoted. The one that stuck in my head is (in a calm explanatory tone, without exclamation point) “He said 'Ha-roor har.”
I saw it at a Denver drive-in in August of 1967, on a double bill with (wait for it!) The Dirty Dozen.
I remember two lines in particular: “Texas isn’t even a state. How big can it be?” and, when the oil comes gushing out of the ground at the end, “Can’t dig a hole anywhere here without hitting that damned stuff!”
The first time my Mom and Dad took me to the movies, it was to see “The African Queen” with Bogart and Hepburn. I was about 5 years old and the whole experience was a thrill!!!
Recently got the DVD and it’s still a damn good movie to this day!!!
“Cute,” perhaps; I’m more inclined to say “sad,” since seeing a movie nowadays is no longer the grand experience it used to be. 
I wasn’t entirely sure of the line, TC, but I just had to reply to someone who remembered that movie. And your recollection sounds funnier, so I’d bet on it. I do remember that the guy had said it a few times with no one questioning it before it was finally acknowledged by one of the cavalrymen, which was a nice touch.
The only other scene I remember was a lone Indian following a cowboy who was travelling by himself. The Indian had a menacing presence but always kept his distance like he was patiently waiting for the right moment, and the cowboy couldn’t shake him no matter what he did. Until the Indian hit his head on a low branch and knocked himself out. I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen, so maybe my comic sensibilities aren’t that exquisite.
??? No mention of This Island Earth?
Off the top of my head:
Gulliver’s Travels (1939)
The Party (1968)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)