Absolutely amazing

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

'Santa Fe Trail' is not an abomination as a film, although as far as history goes it's rather too generous calling it wild fiction. But considering that it was directed by a director whose best films are some of the best ever made, a very interesting subject matter and a great cast it should have been much better.There are things that work in 'Santa Fe Trail's' favour. It is a magnificently shot film and the scenery and production design are evocative and handsome. Max Steiner's music score is, as to be expected from Steiner, lusciously orchestrated and rousing, providing the excitement that much of the drama sorely needs. The climactic moments are well staged, being exciting and moving and Curtiz excels in playing to his strengths here after spending much of the rest of the film not in control of the script and characterisation and being too subdued.Casting varies, with a very memorable Raymond Massey faring best. Granted it is not a subtle performance and one can understand totally if anybody feels he overplays due to the wildly unbalanced and erratic way the character is written, but Massey is very authoritative and formidable, giving his all to material that didn't deserve that effort. Van Heflin also steals scenes as a more major villain role than his billing suggests and he is sinister enough. Olivia De Havilland shares charming chemistry with Errol Flynn and is radiant and charming and she does try to give the role some meat.However, Flynn, usually a very charismatic and watchable performer even with limitations, clearly didn't look interested, apparently Curtiz was frustrated at Flynn's unreliability and lack of effort and it comes through loud and clear (save his moments with De Havilland). Ronald Reagan is ill at ease as Custer, and Alan Hale and Guinn Williams' comic relief roles could easily have been written out and should have been, the characters are completely pointless, the humour is crass and out of place and both actors (usually funny scene-stealers) overplay ridiculously.On top of that, the script is one-dimensional, very biased, muddled and rambling (some of Brown's dialogue is very long-winded). The story is similarly unfocused, giving a sense that the writers didn't know what they wanted the film to be so threw in as much as they could regardless of execution and relevance, and bogged down by too much filler (including a predictable and thrown in love triangle that ends very patly and the comedy), which really drags the pace and a pedestrian pace.The characters are one-dimensional stereotypes and the film is just too one-sided and biased for the conflicts to really convince, let alone resonate.All in all, could have been very intriguing but despite some good parts it all feels very muddled and misguided. 5/10 Bethany Cox

It's 1854. West Point is run by respected commandant Col. Robert E. Lee. Cadet Carl Rader brings in pamphlets from abolitionist John Brown leading to a fight among the cadets. Rader is dishonorably discharged by Lee after a fight with Jeb Stuart (Errol Flynn). Stuart and others are happy to be stationed in the toughest outpost. Stuart and Custer (Ronald Reagan) are sent to Fort Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory. On the train there, they're taken with 'Kit Carson' Holliday (Olivia de Havilland). Oliver Brown tries to smuggle Negroes out and is confronted. He escapes by shooting one of the bounty hunters. Everyone agrees that bloody Kansas needs to rid itself of the villainous abolitionist John Brown (Raymond Massey), father of Oliver.This is a Bizarro world of yore where slavery is no big deal, abolitionists are villains, and people should simply let things be. The movie is definitely made in another era and serves as a time capsule for 1940 as much as for 1854. The rooting interest is against John Brown and the abolitionist, and for everybody especially slave-owing Stuart and flamboyant Custer in fighting against the revolutionaries. It's well made with plenty of action. The rooting interest is horribly tone-deaf in the modern sense. It is fascinating to see the old popular culture that is so different.

Santa Fe Trail, an epic western from Warner Brothers' golden era, is high-powered, fast paced, action-packed entertainment. Not the standard western story line or time setting, it takes place in the years immediately preceding the War Between the States. The action is not the usual cavalry versus Inidians or law versus outlaws, but the Army fighting against John Brown's depredations in "bleeding Kansas". This first class "A" production put first-rate director Micheal Curtiz in charge of a cast topped by Errol Flynn, Ronald Regan, Olivia De Havilland, Raymond Massey (as John Brown), and Van Hefflin in a villainous role, along with Warner's terrific stable of supporting players, and hundreds of extras. Flynn is at his best here as gallant Army officer Jeb Stuart, and the trim Mexican War era uniform compliments his dashing image. Massey is overpowering and absolutely riveting as half-mad, fanatical abolitionist leader Brown. Miss De Havilland doesn't have one of her better parts as the love interest of both Flynn and Regan, but she makes the best of it and comes off both fetching and engaging. Regan is solid and likable in a second banana role. Flynn's two favorite sidekicks (and real-life drinking buddies), those crude but lovable buffoons Alan Hale and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams lead the supporting cast, which also includes Moroni Olsen (as Robert E. Lee), Henry O'Neill, and the ever-reliable John Litel. Acting is first rate from top to bottom.Santa Fe Trail is almost non-stop action from beginning to end, all of it well staged, well filmed, and driven along by a rousing Max Steiner score. This movie has so much kinetic energy, it reminded me of a silent picture at times. The night gunfight in and around the burning barn at Palmyra, which eventually turns into a full-scale pitched battle between the cavalry and the Brownites, is one of the most spectacular and exciting action sequences ever staged in a movie. Yet the script by Robert Buckner is intelligent with sharp and engaging dialog. The final battle with Brown's forces at the Harpers Ferry Arsenal is staged on an epic scale. In both this scene and the one at Palmyra it seems more like a war movie than a western.Santa Fe Trail is top-notch entertainment in every way. Unfortunately the picture has come under a barrage of unfair criticism from two of the most irritating creatures who lurk about IMDb -- the self-appointed history professor and the politically correct gestapo enforcer. The professors of course are right in saying the movie plays fast and loose with history. But who cares! This is a work of fiction, **based** on actual events but not bound to portray them with circumspect accuracy. When the facts get in the way of the story, the story comes first. Only the most naive and uneducated expect a movie to give accurate history. You have to go to one of those old artifacts of the pre-electronic age, a book, to get the facts. Santa Fe Trail does, however, give an excellent impressionistic view of the events and attitudes leading up to the Civil War. It should set off a looking-up binge for the curious. I recall when first seeing the picture about fifty years ago, I did a lot of looking up. I didn't expect to find Jeb Stuart and Custer in the same West Point class. I already knew enough to know that Custer was much younger. But I was pleasantly surprised to find Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart were in fact at the siege at Harpers Ferry. By the way some of the professors erred in complaining that lever action rifles were used -- meaning repeating rifles, which would be incorrect for the time period. The rifles used in Santa Fe Trail were Sharps single shot breech loaders, which employed an under lever to open and close the breech for reloading -- in wide use during the 1850's. Not everything was inaccurate!The politically correct thought-control police have labeled Santa Fe Trail "racist" simply because it tries to show both sides of the issue and because it portrays Brown as an unbalanced murderer, which no serious history denies, rather than the hero they horrifyingly think he was. They have been joined by the rabidly Southerner-hating Yankees who come out of the woodwork to comment on any Civil War era movie. In fact this movie takes no side. The movie studios of the Golden Era had no agenda, except entertaining people and making stacks of money doing it, which Santa Fe Trail delivered on both accounts. It wasn't taking the Southern side to have Jeb Stuart say the South would eventually take care of the slavery problem itself. That was a common Southern attitude. Because he said it doesn't mean it was true or the movie makers approved it. And on and on. What Santa Fe Trail failed to show about the era leading up the the War Between the States was the real cause of the war. It wasn't slavery, or saving the Union, or state's rights or Southern independence. Those were just excuses for fighting. The War happened because the people of the North and the people of the South hated each other's guts. Did then, did from the very beginning of the Republic, and still do! No, the movie Santa Fe Trail didn't show that, but the IMDb reviews and message board posts demonstrate it all too well.

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.