HBO (Sat., March 28, 8 P.M. ET)
A-
In 1911 a starving Indian (Graham Greene of Dances with Wolves) wanders into a slaughterhouse in Oroville, in the foothills of the California Sierras. The last survivor of the Yahi, a people thought to be extinct, he is brought to San Francisco to live with anthropologist Dr. Alfred Kroeber (Jon Voight), who is delighted to have a chance to study "the last truly primitive man on our continent." Over time, the starchy and pedantic Kroeber ends up learning a good deal more than dialect from the Indian he names Ishi. Anne Archer, David Ogden Stiers and Jack Blessing costar.
Lustrously shot by director Harry Hook, the fact-based film is a thoughtful exploration of the noble-savage theme, made memorable by fine performances, especially that of Greene, who invests the role with dignity, an implicit sense of grief and a deep spirituality.
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