This movie is also a western of sorts and it is very much an epic. That made Raoul Walsh the ideal director. Walsh had directed The Thief of Bagdad for Douglas Fairbanks in 1924 and while Fairbanks was very much the auteur and Walsh’s job was simply to put Fairbanks’ vision on screen it still provided Walsh with invaluable training in handling epic material and huge productions. And Walsh had already directed a western epic, The Big Trail, in 1930. There was no way that Raoul Walsh was going to be intimidated by a project such as They Died with Their Boots On.
It’s a very long movie and it takes us two hours and twenty minutes to get to the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It begins with Custer’s extraordinary career at West Point which is not exaggerated very much. Custer really did have one of the worst disciplinary records in the history of that august institution.
While at West Point he meets Elizabeth Bacon (Olivia de Havilland). They both know they’re destined to get married, which they eventually do.
Custer fails to adjust to civilian life and starts to fall apart until his wife pulls some strings and gets him put back on the active list. He is to take command of a ragtag bunch of hopeless new recruits. He will build them into the legendary 7th Cavalry. There are battles with the Sioux until Custer and Crazy Horse (Anthony Quinn) decide they both want peace. Custer trusts Crazy Horse and Crazy Horse trusts Custer. They are both right to do so. Custer persuades Crazy Horse that he can trust the US Government as well and should sign a treaty. Trusting the US Government turns out to be a very big mistake.
The US Government is not the only problem. There are also crooked businessmen who want the last remaining lands of the Plains Indians. Every single businessman and politician in this movie is a liar, a cheat and a crook.
Custer and Crazy Horse are both brave, honourable decent men but they are helpless in the face of the manipulations of those crooked businessmen and politicians. And so they end up facing each other at the Little Bighorn.
Flynn is magnificent. He plays Custer like a dashing figure from an adventure novel and that is more or less how Custer lived his life. No-one did adventure heroes better than Flynn but here he gets the chance to show that he was quite capable of displaying subtlety and emotional depth as well.
Mention must be made of Sydney Greenstreet’s wonderful turn as the army commander-in-chief Winfield Scott. He’s a joy to watch.
As you’d expect Walsh handles the action scenes with plenty of skill. There is a very real sense of tragedy to this movie. Custer is drawn inexorably to his fate by his thirst for both glory and honour. The movie is of course utter nonsense as history but that’s Hollywood. It’s still wildly entertaining. That sense of tragedy makes this more than just a movie about heroism. Highly recommended.
The DVD release includes a brief TCM featurette on the movie made about twenty years ago so it’s mercifully free of ideological lecturing.
Ironically, we did the Colonisation of the American West as one of the History modules at school, so I probably know more about this than most Americans (I've also read the brilliant Flashman and the Redskins novel).
ReplyDeleteThis was made at a time when American history was basically still being written. I haven't seen it in such a long time, but it's definitely the best Custer movie (none of which were remotely accurate lol).
It's basically an Errol Flynn vehicle - if you like that kind of thing, you'll love this.
I think Errol Flynn was a pretty sound casting choice. You need someone larger-than-life to play Custer and no-one was better qualified than Flynn in that respect.
DeleteI've read various things on the subject of Custer and the one thing that does seem to be agreed upon is that he really was a larger-than-life kind of guy with a lot of charisma.
Flashman and the Redskins is one of my favourite Flashmans!