They Died with Their Boots On
Directed by Raul Walsh
Written by Wally Kline and Aeneas MacKenzie
1941/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box]George Armstrong Custer: You may be right about money, Sharp; quite right. But there’s one thing to be said for glory.
Ned Sharp: Yeah? What’s that?
George Armstrong Custer: You can take glory with you when it’s your time to go.[/box]
Errol Flynn makes a convincing and heroic George Armstrong Custer, Australian accent and all.
This is a liberally fictionalized account of the life of Custer (Flynn) starting with his West Point Days and ending with his death at the famous Battle of the Little Big Horn (“Custer’s Last Stand”). Custer begins his military career as the flamboyant black sheep of West Point, a star with a saber but a dud at academics and constantly being disciplined for something or other. On the day he is being graduated early to go off to fight in the Civil War he meets Libby (Olivia de Havilland). It is reciprocal love at first sight.
Combat does not change Custer’s insubordination in the slightest. Fortunately, as someone remarks, soldiers who refuse to obey orders wind up either sacked or with a medal and Custer is the kind that earns medals. He becomes a hero during the Battle of Bull Run. Custer begins drinking heavily out of boredom after the war and Libby gets him an appointment to the Seventh Cavalry in Lincoln Nebraska.
There he meets his old rival from West Point Ned Sharp (Arthur Kennedy). who has followed the money as a civilian and now corrupts the soldiers of the regiment with a saloon and sells rifles to the Indians. Custer kicks Sharp out and rebuilds his regiment. They fight the warring Sioux nation down until Chief Crazy Horse (Anthony Quinn) promises peace on Custer’s promise that the Sioux will be allowed perpetual governance of their sacred land in the Black Hills. A peace treaty is signed but Sharp, now backed by evil railroad interests and a government commissioner, conspires to lure white settlers to the area by false claims of a gold discovery. Custer goes to Washington to try to convince the authorities of the error of their ways but eventually must return to the regiment to face their common fate. With Gene Lockhart as Libby’s father, Hattie McDaniel as her Mammy, Charlie Grapewin as a comic sidekick, and Sydney Greenstreet as General Winfield Scott.They Died with Their Boots On clocks in at two hours and twenty minutes but goes by quickly due to liberal amounts of humor in the first half and plenty of action in the second. Flynn is just right as the vainglorious, cocky, but brave Custer. The relationship with de Havilland is tender and mature. The supporting cast is superb as I have come to expect from Warner’s.
This was the eight and final pairing of Flynn and de Havilland. The farewell was the last scene they filmed together.
Clip – Farewell scene
3 responses to “They Died with Their Boots On (1941)”