They Died with Their Boots On (1941)

Warner Bros.

Director: Raoul Walsh

Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland

Many Americans may know of the tale “Custer’s last stand,” and in this 1941 Warner Bros. motion picture is the story of George Armstrong Custer, a Civil War hero who fell battling Native Americans on the great plans of America. Featuring the eighth pairing of Warner Bros seemingly favorite romantic couple, the romantic/action hero Errol Flynn and the beautiful Olivia de Havilland, the picture delivers an up-with-the-US-army feeling that would be lapped up by American audiences at dawn of the nation entering World War II. Mixing a bit of western, a dash of American history, and a pinch of a love story you get a result of Hollywood fluff for 1941 that audiences enjoyed is large numbers.

Flynn as a garishly dressed Custer

They Died with Their Boots On is a western/biographical picture sharing a highly fictionalized story of the military exploits of George Armstrong Custer from the point to becoming a soldier, through the Civil War, until his infamous death. A flamboyant, unruly, and irresponsible Custer (Errol Flynn) was a troublesome cadet at the military academy at West Point, in fact last in his class, when the Civil War broke out and he was graduated in a hurry in order to pad the Union effort. Through the years Custer would be a decorated Civil War hero and after the war would be commissioned to work in the Dakotas for the military to patrol the skirmishes between frontier Americans and the Native Americans, leading to his last stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn and death battling Crazy Horse (Anthony Quinn) and the Sioux Nation. Custer is painted in the feature as a brave soldier who sacrificed himself in battle in order to save the Native Americans from a greater slaughter if they were not slowed, presenting him as a noble man for a greater cause than what was seen.

To be blunt, the movie is complete cinema fluff. George Armstrong Custer is perceived historically as overconfident, but poor soldier who fought and lived through the Civil War, but is most remembered for his foolhardy charge against Crazy Horse leading to his death. They Died with Their Boots On colors Custer as an American hero, almost in the likes of Daniel Boone or Davy Crocket. Taking bits and pieces of facts from the man’s life would be enough for Warner Bros. to concoct a script for a motion picture that attempts to construct something like a mythology for an American hero of the past that did not quiet happen as we seen on screen.

The film follows the exploits of Custer, played by Errol Flynn is his usual Flynn-like manner, from his beginnings as a disobedient cadet at West Point to being a Brigadier General during the Civil War, on into his post-War years as a restless veteran that eventually is re-commissioned to work in the frontier. Flynn’s performance plays exactly as you would think it would if you have seen any other Errol Flynn movie, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood or Captain Blood. You would expect this since he is paired once again with on screen love interest Olivia de Havilland, an actress of wonderful beauty, but can easily be seen as highly reserved by the roles she is being cast in.

The final pairing of de Havilland and Flynn

De Havilland plays this story’s “Maid Marion” as Elizabeth, Custer’s love interest and eventual wife. Her performance is of the common wife of any hero in a Hollywood picture, a wife that worries while her man is out doing… whatever he does, but later she develops great emotional strength when it is needed to serve a purpose of the moral fiber of movie. After eight films these two are a tiresome formula that would be greatly overplayed by the studio, but that is not to say audiences did not go see them then, because they certainly did.

Director Raoul Walsh would be the man at the helm of this picture providing the necessary skill to tie in action with plot, romance with suspense, drama with comedy. His work in westerns and various location pictures would be the skills essential to construct a picture of this manner. Walsh is good director, able to get across all the nuances of emotion and plot needed from the script, while being able to add scope to a film that utilizes vistas with a great amount of extras in battle scenes.

Walsh had great credentials in his past and would be given most of the means by Warners to make the picture. The only thing he would not get to do on production was the ability to film in the real locations he would have wanted. Although the film takes place in various states such as Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, and South Dakota, it is plan to see that it is the deserts and rolling hills of Southern California that stand in for all of these greener and lush locations.

Of course the script is a bit lacking, primarily from all the added historical inaccuracies and added honor to the story of Custer that pad the man actual history. All historical movies are exaggerated to some point, but this film was attempting to make something greater out of something far less significant, which to viewers that appreciates history really drags down the feature..

With all the chivalrous qualities of Flynn’s acting and sappiness of his story the movie relies heavily of the use of side characters to pad the plot into something palatable for the audience. The comedic rest periods would be provided by Charley Grapewin who portrays California Joe, a tobacco spitting southern prospector-type that joins Custer’s efforts and provides his own knowledge of “Injuns” of the frontier. Crazy Horse, played by Anthony Quinn, may have been the protagonist in the end of the story, but it is Arthur Kennedy’s character of Ned Sharp that was created to be the protagonist throughout the Custer story. Sharp is the fictional character that plagues Custer from West Point to the Dakotas, causing him trouble all through. Kennedy manifests his acting skills and shows promise as a future star on the horizon as he is yet new in Hollywood during this time.

From a political correctness standpoint looking back on this feature we see the usual Hollywood lack of respect for the Native American culture. Anthony Quinn, an actor with a fraction of Native American in his blood, is the only Indian in the film with any substance, but delivers a forgettable performance. Other than a few natural Indians most of the Native American extras were in fact Polynesian fill ins. Aside from these aspects the film actually takes a sympathetic look at Native Americans, but its drawback is that it paints Custer not as an Indian killer, rather as an champion of the Indians in the frontier. It may not be entirely accurate, but they were trying to sell movie tickets.

The film would go on to make back nearly twice as much money as it took to produce. This could perhaps be the result of the film advertising a very American story in the wake of Pearl Harbor, which took place just a little over two weeks after it hit theaters. It was the second highest grossing feature for Warner Bros that year, but would fade into the background of cinema as the picture consists of no real prominence in history of America culture or Hollywood fame. It simply marked the end of pairing of Flynn and de Havilland as one of the most marketable on screen couples at Warner Bros before World War II as romance in the movies would greatly change in the coming years.