The Adventures of Robin Hood is Errol Flynn's justly most famous film. The Sea Hawk is, in my judgment, his greatest film. But when I was a kid and all my friends would gather at my house to watch one of the Errol Flynn films a local station had in their syndication package, there was unanimous agreement that They Died With Their Boots on was THE incomparable Errol Flynn film. The great set-piece of the final battle with our hero standing defiantly alone, the last of his command still alive, out of bullets but holding his sword toward the enemy, was over-whelming to us. After the show was over, we would repair to the backyard and refight the battle, arguing about who would be Custer and who would be Crazy Horse.
Looking at it as an adult who has read some history, I can see that there is a lot to object to in this movie. But I still think it is a great film. It is wonderfully entertaining and there's even some 'woke' moments in it, to use a modern term for being politically and morally aware, that seem to me to be even more important than the historical inaccuracies.
General Custer has been an inflatable - and deflatable hero to Americans over the years. After his death he was a national hero/martyr who had "died with his boots on". Paintings of his brave "last stand" were an art form in the late 19th century which graced many a saloon. He was still considered a hero at the time of this film and we needed them in 1941. Over the years sympathy for the Indians grew and they are shown as the courageous victims of corrupt white men, (as they often were by Hollywood and then television neither of which viewed the only good Indian as being a dead one). Custer in this film is not among them. He's shown as being entirely too full of himself in the comic scenes early in the film but he shows the courage to back up his opinion of himself in battle and proves to be a man of great integrity as well as courage. This puts him at odds with the corrupt men who, ironically, had insisted that he follow the rules at West Point and during the Civil War but who, now in civilian life, were out to make money by getting a monopoly on trading posts, (this part of the film is authentic: the writers pick what they need out of reality and make up the rest - it's not a documentary). There's a great scene just before the 7th Cavalry leave for their final battle in which Custer and Arthur Kennedy as 'Ned Sharp' have an unfriendly drink. Sharp tells him that pursuing glory as Custer has is foolish compared to Sharp's pursuit of money. Custer tells him that glory has one thing over money - you can take it with you. He might also have been talking about integrity.
The real theme of this film is not the quest for glory. It's about how corrupt businessmen and politicians get our country and thus our military into situations where they have to fight costly wars, where the soldiers and the aboriginal peoples we wind up fighting pay the price and the corrupt ones count the money. That's a very modern, very 'woke' theme for a 1941 film. It makes up for the fact that the unseemly aspects of Custer's character and career are largely absent for them film. Those aspects are more than adequately covered in his many cinematic and video appearances since the war. One purpose of our fictional heroes, (and this Custer is more fictional than real), is to advertise the qualities we admire while the villains advertise the qualities for which we have contempt. The hero and villains of this film do that admirably.
Kennedy is playing virtually the same character Van Heflin plays in the previous year's Santa Fe Trail. There's an impressive scene early in this film, when the officers and cadets at West Point loyal to the south are allowed to leave in good order and with respect to join the Confederacy that reminded me of the fortune teller scene in that film where the young officers are told that will one day be fighting each other. The fact that the most apparently disciplined characters in the beginning of the film are the most corrupt at the end of it is interesting: they use rules to suppress others but lack any moral compass. Is that meant to suggest the Nazis? I'm still trying to figure out what the constant references to onions means.
Hattie McDaniel makes an appearance here, playing the same maid-with-a-mind-of-her-own character she does in so many films but never better than here. Stanley Ridges plays the officious but corrupt Major Romulus Taipe, (Red Tape?), to the holt. John Litel is a more principled and understanding version of the same character. Both are excellent with wonderfully sharp theatrically trained voices.
The film is justly famous for the final scene between Flynn and Olivia De Havilland after 8 films together. This is the only film that depicted them after their marriage as a husband and wife. They both know that Custer is going to his death but don't dare mention it. The actors also both knew that, since she no longer wanted to play the girl or the wife in his films, this would likely be their last scene together. Knowing that gives this scene an emotional impact beyond that of any other scene in the cinema. When Custer says, for the third time in the film "Walking through life with you, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing", there isn't a dry eye in the house. Any house.
Looking at it as an adult who has read some history, I can see that there is a lot to object to in this movie. But I still think it is a great film. It is wonderfully entertaining and there's even some 'woke' moments in it, to use a modern term for being politically and morally aware, that seem to me to be even more important than the historical inaccuracies.
General Custer has been an inflatable - and deflatable hero to Americans over the years. After his death he was a national hero/martyr who had "died with his boots on". Paintings of his brave "last stand" were an art form in the late 19th century which graced many a saloon. He was still considered a hero at the time of this film and we needed them in 1941. Over the years sympathy for the Indians grew and they are shown as the courageous victims of corrupt white men, (as they often were by Hollywood and then television neither of which viewed the only good Indian as being a dead one). Custer in this film is not among them. He's shown as being entirely too full of himself in the comic scenes early in the film but he shows the courage to back up his opinion of himself in battle and proves to be a man of great integrity as well as courage. This puts him at odds with the corrupt men who, ironically, had insisted that he follow the rules at West Point and during the Civil War but who, now in civilian life, were out to make money by getting a monopoly on trading posts, (this part of the film is authentic: the writers pick what they need out of reality and make up the rest - it's not a documentary). There's a great scene just before the 7th Cavalry leave for their final battle in which Custer and Arthur Kennedy as 'Ned Sharp' have an unfriendly drink. Sharp tells him that pursuing glory as Custer has is foolish compared to Sharp's pursuit of money. Custer tells him that glory has one thing over money - you can take it with you. He might also have been talking about integrity.
The real theme of this film is not the quest for glory. It's about how corrupt businessmen and politicians get our country and thus our military into situations where they have to fight costly wars, where the soldiers and the aboriginal peoples we wind up fighting pay the price and the corrupt ones count the money. That's a very modern, very 'woke' theme for a 1941 film. It makes up for the fact that the unseemly aspects of Custer's character and career are largely absent for them film. Those aspects are more than adequately covered in his many cinematic and video appearances since the war. One purpose of our fictional heroes, (and this Custer is more fictional than real), is to advertise the qualities we admire while the villains advertise the qualities for which we have contempt. The hero and villains of this film do that admirably.
Kennedy is playing virtually the same character Van Heflin plays in the previous year's Santa Fe Trail. There's an impressive scene early in this film, when the officers and cadets at West Point loyal to the south are allowed to leave in good order and with respect to join the Confederacy that reminded me of the fortune teller scene in that film where the young officers are told that will one day be fighting each other. The fact that the most apparently disciplined characters in the beginning of the film are the most corrupt at the end of it is interesting: they use rules to suppress others but lack any moral compass. Is that meant to suggest the Nazis? I'm still trying to figure out what the constant references to onions means.
Hattie McDaniel makes an appearance here, playing the same maid-with-a-mind-of-her-own character she does in so many films but never better than here. Stanley Ridges plays the officious but corrupt Major Romulus Taipe, (Red Tape?), to the holt. John Litel is a more principled and understanding version of the same character. Both are excellent with wonderfully sharp theatrically trained voices.
The film is justly famous for the final scene between Flynn and Olivia De Havilland after 8 films together. This is the only film that depicted them after their marriage as a husband and wife. They both know that Custer is going to his death but don't dare mention it. The actors also both knew that, since she no longer wanted to play the girl or the wife in his films, this would likely be their last scene together. Knowing that gives this scene an emotional impact beyond that of any other scene in the cinema. When Custer says, for the third time in the film "Walking through life with you, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing", there isn't a dry eye in the house. Any house.