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DVD They Died with Their Boots On
Bert Glennon, who shot Stagecoach and seven other John Ford classics, has given this Raoul Walsh biopic of George Armstrong Custer a burnished glow--an evocative interplay of raw sunlight and elegiac shadow like no other vintage Warner Bros. Western. Glennon's artistry and Walsh's trademark gusto sustain enthusiasm even as the screenplay beggars belief. The flamboyant Custer (Errol Flynn), rushed into Civil War service straight from West Point, did get promoted overnight to general and establish a spectacular record for "ride to the guns" leadership. However, Custer as defender of Indians' rights--to the point of willing his own Last Stand so he could accuse corrupt Indian Commissioners from the grave--is historical rewrite of such sweeping chutzpah as to shame DeMille. Flynn and Olivia de Havilland make an even more appealing couple than usual, and the big supporting cast is unflaggingly energetic above and beyond the call of duty. --Richard T. Jameson
"We ride... to hell. Or to glory. It depends on your point of view"
For pure movie-going pleasure, there is nothing quite like an Errol Flynn picture, and THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON is one of his best. With non-stop humor, high adventure, and romance, this film hits all the right chords to satisfy an escapist-minded audience. Though quite long at nearly two and a half hours, the film is not dull for a moment, and you will likely go away from it with an intense sense of satisfaction. The movie represents entertainment at its purest.
THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON is the story of George Armstrong Custer (Flynn), from his flamboyant, hilarious arrival at West Point Academy as a new cadet, through his famous last stand at the Little Big Horn. Filled as it is with humor, excitement, and pathos, don't look to this movie for historical accuracy, though many of the events depicted in the film did more or less occur. Custer is portrayed here as a colorful and insubordinate but brilliant cavalry officer who becomes a national hero at Gettysburg after defying orders during the Civil War. After the war, Custer takes a motley, drunken bunch of recruits in the Dakota Territories and molds them into the cavalry's finest fighting unit, while promising peace with Crazy Horse and the local Indian populations. Soon, however, political machinations, sordid business interests, and personal vendettas against Custer conspire to trigger the Black Hills Gold Rush which ultimately compels Custer's 7th Cavalry to undertake their suicide mission against the Sioux at Little Big Horn (in real history, it was Custer himself who triggered the gold rush and broke the Indian treaties).
Olivia de Havilland puts in her obligatory performance as Flynn's love interest Elizabeth Bacon (this was her 8th and final movie with Flynn and the first without director Michael Curtiz) and she is especially appealing and beautiful in her part. Anthony Quinn, in one his early roles, plays the Sioux chief Crazy Horse who is first captured then placated and then unwillingly betrayed by Custer. Everyone's favorite movie "fat man," Sydney Greenstreet plays Union general-in-chief Winfield Scott who is charmed by Custer and who then grants him his first command. Arthur Kennedy plays the malevolent Ned Sharp, the war profiteer, land speculator, and former classmate of Custer who orchestrates Custer's downfall with his cynical profit motives. Hattie McDaniel makes an appearance in her "Mammy" persona, as the matchmaking housemaid Callie who helps Custer in his attempts to court Elizabeth.
THE DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON is a fun movie and some of Errol Flynn's favorite attributes are on display as the affable, independent, irreverent hero. Though none of George Custer's more fatal blemishes are depicted here, one does not go to an Errol Flynn movie expecting to see a flawed hero. So indeed, he is portrayed as a champion of Native American territorial rights and a fierce enemy of political corruption who goes willingly to his grave in order to indict the debased system. Fine American action director Raoul Walsh (HIGH SIERRA, WHITE HEAT) provides us with thoroughly rousing action sequences and adventure that entertains from start to finish.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
Huh?!!!
I don't pretend to be a student of history but what little I do know made me scratch my head with this film. The film starts off swimmingly enough charting George Armstrong Custer's days as an underachieving dandy at West Point to his rise to glory as he leads a series of successful campaigns in the Civil War. When the film turns westward is when it starts getting interesting. See, Custer it turns out, according to the filmmakers,was a champion of Indian rights and the scourge of the government and it's parasitic lobbyists. Yessir, Custer was ahead of his time. Not only was he embracing New Deal ideals but progressive 1960s politics as well. Oh, well, the film is at least entertaining and I'm sure it gets the seal of approval from Custer's descendants. It's not like that nasty depiction of him in "Little Big Man". Errol Flynn is charismatic as Custer. Olivia de Havilland is luminous as his wife and the romantic spark between her and Flynn is combustible. A couple quibbles about a few supporting parts notably Hattie McDaniel's tired Mammy routine and that annoying Charley Grapewin assaying another insufferable old coot.
Garry Owen!
If you are looking for the real M.G. George Armstrong Custer USA then don't go & see this film. The mistakes, lies and outright baloney of this film are just stunning to behold. If on the other hand you want to see a classic 1940's Western Movie, well here you go. You decide.
The swashbuckler had been around long before Errol Flynn drew a cutlass, but the Tasmanian-born bit player reinvigorated the genre with his mix of dashing good looks, haughty insolence, and alluring confidence. Adapted from the novel by Rafael Sabatini (who also penned The Sea Hawk), this rousing adventure chronicles the travails of Peter Blood (Flynn), a righteous doctor unjustly sold into slavery for treating the wounds of rebels, a kind of British Dr. Mudd. Sent to a Jamaican plantation where he toils under the brutal whip of Lionel Atwill and seethes with passion for his fair niece (the astonishingly beautiful Olivia de Havilland), he escapes from bondage with his fellow prisoners and becomes the gentleman rogue pirate of the Caribbean. Director Michael Curtiz builds from one... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Errol Flynn - Olivia de Havilland - Lionel Atwill Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Five years after Captain Blood made him a swashbuckling star, Errol Flynn returned to the high seas as privateer Captain Thorpe in The Sea Hawk. Flynn plays the dashing gentleman pirate as dedicated patriot, looting Spanish ships for English coffers with the private blessing of Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson, reprising the role from Fire over England). The film opens with a rousing sea battle: broadside cannon fire sends masts falling and splinters a-flying before Flynn's men take their Spanish quarry in a furious shipboard cutlass battle. The fearless fighter becomes a stumbling schoolboy when he falls for the Spanish ambassador's niece, but he's back in his element when he sails to the New World for treasure and lands in the middle of a deadly conspiracy. Big-eyed... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Errol Flynn - Brenda Marshall Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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One or two good scenes, but this, frankly, isn't much of a movie. Most of the reviewers seem to know this, but they give it high stars because of Flynn and De Havilland. It's all a bit tedious and predictable. Flynn never had an Australian accent (well, maybe, right at the beginning of his career). In fact his accent was about as British as they come, and he wasn't a good mimic when it came to accents. My disc came in the six disc Signature Collection, and although Captain Blood played well, this Dodge City disc had something seriously wrong with both the colour and the sound. A dull script, plot full of silly holes, corny dialogue, heavy-handed comedy can't be saved by the stars and a good barroom brawl. According to the bio-documentary of Errol Flynn, which comes with the collection,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Errol Flynn - Olivia de Havilland Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This big, boisterous adventure is more inspired by than based on Rudyard Kipling's famous poem. Legendary screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur have fashioned a rousing Hollywood movie full of high adventure, knockabout comedy, and old-fashioned male bonding. And old-fashioned it is: the trio of British officers and best friends who form the core of the film are a 19th-century three musketeers in India, threatened by the interventions of a woman who means to marry the dashing Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Blustery commander MacChesney (Victor McLaglen) schemes to keep Ballantine in the army while his second in command, the treasure-hunting Cutter (Cary Grant in a hopelessly mugging comic performance), continues searching for his elusive mother lode, but all their plans are... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Joan Fontaine Director(s): George Stevens DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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