Santa Fe Trail (1940)

. . . and J.E.B. Stuart emerges victorious against his Real Life nemesis, George Armstrong Custer. Those brave enough to seek the Truth know that the men who died inside the Alamo were Hell-bent on kidnapping the Black Population of Texas Province BACK into Slavery AFTER their lawful government in Mexico City had emancipated ALL victims of Human Slavery nationwide! Similarly, John Brown and his Freedom Fighters, libeled here in SANTA FE TRAIL, are largely responsible for Blacks being Free in America today. Without Brown, Abe Lincoln would NOT have been elected president, and NO Civil War would have been fought. (Robert E. Lee is shown here personally stringing up Brown for killing a few dozen in Freedom's Cause; Lee's henchman John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln before Abe could string up Lee for murdering 300,000-plus in Slavery's Cause!) As Errol Flynn's mealy-mouthed version of Stuart says to Ronald Reagan's Custer, today the Slave Owners of the South would still be debating whether Oprah, LeBron, and Tiger's grandkids might one day be set Free. (Stuart was a firm believer in Millenia of genteel discussion among the lazy Plantation Owners.) SANTA FE TRAIL places Custer in the West Point Class of 1854, and asserts that he hails from the Buckeye State. Even Australian Flynn knew that George was a Michigan cadet from the class of 1862, so he insisted on playing Custer himself the following year in THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON to set the record straight. The latter flick includes Custer's oft-quoted line, "Charge, you Wolverines!" which initiated the defeat of Stuart's cavalry by Custer's horsemen, dooming Pickett's Charge, and the hopes of the South to persist in their evil Racist Slavery System. It's just so tragic that Flynn, by his birth, was ineligible to become U.S. President. If he had been a viable candidate, it's likely he would have taken better care of himself and been around to beat "The Gipper" once again in the 1980 election. The theft of 99% of America's Wealth by the One Per Centers never would have gotten a start under President Errol, and Virtual Slavery would not have been imposed on the American Majority!

This is an excellent Golden Age picture which is heavy on action and light on historical accuracy. I wasn't around in 1940 and I don't know why, as several contributors have noted, studios routinely rearranged facts to such a degree as to make history unrecognizable, and I don't really care. I paid attention in school. What I want from an action picture is action, and "Santa Fe Trail" really comes through on that score.There are several sweeping fight and battle scenes to satisfy any action fan, which makes this one of the more rousing westerns of the 40's, or any other decade. Just swallow hard as Errol Flynn (Jeb Stuart) and Ronald Reagan (George Custer) are depicted as West Point classmates and how Reagan, sporting a contemporary 40's haircut, looks nothing like depictions of Custer. You also have to take the abolitionist/slaver narrative with an enormous grain of salt. Raymond Massey plays John Brown as a wild-eyed fanatic in which must be one of his best movie roles in a long, distinguished career, and the rest of the cast is made up of many of Warner Bros. stable of supporting actors.As noted, this is one of Hollywood's best westerns but which gets a bum rap from the PC crowd, which piles on due to the lack of historical accuracy in the film. As a result, the website rating is a distortion which does not reflect true entertainment value.

Robert Buckner wrote the screenplay for this movie called " Sante Fe Trail " and was directed by Michael Curtiz. Whatever both men thought of the finish movie who can say, one thing is for sure, neither man ever made another such mess. Historically, the story is very one sided and presented John Brown (Raymond Massey) as nothing more than a raving lunatic. In addition, the title of the film is supposed to be about the Trail through the state of New Mexico. Within the scope of the story, audiences are offered a new crop of West Point cadets all of which are friends shortly before the Civil War. Errol Flynn plays Jeb Stuart. while Ronald Reagan plays George Custer and Olivia de Havilland, trying to select from the two. Far fetched as that is, the audience spends more time watching John Brown fight with the U.S. army, instead of the scenery along the trail. Were it not for the comic relief of Alan Hale or the serious addition of Van Heflin, the movie would have have garnered little more than a ho-hum. With the sounds of conflict rising and falling due to the emerging sound systems, the movie rates low as an exciting adventure story. ***

It's funny to see the similarities of this movie to a movie Errol Flynn made a year later. 'They Died With Their Boots On' starts out the same way, at West Point. In 'Boots', Errol Flynn plays the part of George Custer and Olivia De Havilland plays his wife. John Litel plays General Sheridan. They both have similar beginnings but tell different stories during the Civil War. Santa Fe deals with the problem of slavery, the abolitionist John Brown and in part shows how the Underground Railway helped some blacks escape slavery. It also shows the harsh reality for those who helped those blacks on the run to freedom. 'Boots' deals with the life of General George Custer, his rise through officer ranks and the dilemma he is faced with that leads to his demise at Little Big Horn. Regardless of any 'liberties' taken by the directors, both movies give an interesting incite into these historical events of the American Civil War.