DON'T TOUCH THE WHITE WOMAN

Non toccare la donna bianca – Italian title

Touche pas à la femme blanche – French title
Älä koske valkoiseen naiseen – Finnish title
Berühre nicht die weiße Frau – German title
Fehér asszony ne érints! – Hungarian title
Nie dotykaj białej kobiety - Polish title
Não Toques na Mulher Branca – Portuguese title
No tocar la mujer blanca – Spanish title
Rör inte den vita kvinnan – Swedish title
The True Story of General Custer – English title
Don’t Touch the White Woman! – English title

A 1973 French, Italian co-production [Films 66, Mara (Paris), PEA (Rome)]
Producer: Jean-Pierre Rassam, Jean Yanne, Alaine Sarde, Alberto Grimaldi
Director: Marco Ferreri
Story: Marco Ferreri
Screenplay: Marco Ferreri, Rafael Azcona (Rafael Fernandez)
Cinematography: Étienne Becker [Eastmancolor, widescreen]
Music: Philippe Sarde
Song: “So Soft and Swift”, “If You Love Georgeanne” sung by ?
Running time: 108 minutes


Cast:
General George Armstrong Custer - Marcello Mastroianni
Mitch - Ugo Tognazzi (Ottavio Tognazi)
Marie-Hélène de Boismonfrais - Catherine Deneuve (Catherine Dorleac)
Buffalo Bill - Michel Piccoli (Jacques Piccoli)
General Terry - Phillipe Noiret
Sitting Bull - Alain Cuny (Rene Cuny)
Crazy Horse - Serge Reggiani
Major Archibald - Darry Cowl (Andre Darricau)
Sister Lucie - Monique Chaumette
CIA Agent/Professor Pinkerton - Paolo Villaggio
Major Tom Custer - Franco Fabrizzi (Franco Fabrizi)
Rayon de Lune - Franca Bettoja (Franca Bettoia)
Kellogg - Marco Ferreri
government official - Daniele Dublino
Sitting Bull’s Father - Henri Piccoli
Hermione Terry - Francine Custer
Mitch’s son - Gian Marco Tognazzi (Gianmarco Tognazzi)
soldiers - Vedres et Boutang (Pierre-André Boutang), Laurente
Vedres
with; Solange Blondeau, Eve Vergel, Jacques Robiolles, Solange Koch, Bertrand Tavernier, Maritin, Jeff Zimmerman (Jeff Zimmermann), Noël Simsolo, Andre Cagnard, L'Automate Mr. John

Don't Touch the White Woman is Marco Ferreri and co-writer Rafael Azcona's surreal take on the legends of the American West. Mastroianni plays Colonel George Armstrong Custer, and rather than send him to Little Big Horn in the 1800s, the filmmakers have set him down in an anachronistic landscape, a town that is crumbling under its own progress in a 19th-century America where Richard Nixon is President and the Pinkertons are CIA agents who don college sweatshirts in order to pass as anthropologists. Custer is brought in by a business conglomerate backing the railroads to clean out the influx of Native Americans that has been lead into their slums by Sitting Bull (Alain Cuny) and his advisor and court jester, a naked, bald madman (Serge Reggiani). Joining the venerated American icon as the public face for this campaign is Buffalo Bill (Michel Piccoli), a comedian who dislikes Custer nearly as much as Custer dislikes him. Just seeing Bill's gray moustache is enough to make the soldier bark like a dog.

Calming Custer down is the presence of Marie-Hélène de Boismonfrais (Catherine Deneuve), a volunteer nurse. With her long red hair and immaculate white dresses, Marie-Hélène is definitely a sight to behold. Hers is also a pretty thankless role. All Deneuve really gets to do is stand around and be pious and then say something racist in order to puncture her pristine image. Outside of one actually pretty amusing scene where her sexual desires for Custer are unleashed--Deneuve is a little too good at parodying seduction; that bottom lip has been chewed on before!--her only other purpose is to be the occasional fetish object for Custer's Indian scout Mitch (Ugo Tognazzi). He's the one who keeps getting told to stop touching the white women. He also gets a lot of tomatoes thrown in his face by his fellow Native Americans. Later, Buffalo Bill puts a pie in another man's face. Apparently Ferreri has never met a stick he wouldn't slap. - Jamie S. Rich


YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ_uI3P5k6U