Tuya es mi vida

This is really shocking to see that this sort of propoganda was still made in 1940. It's impossible to enjoy this film "historical accuracy aside," because it's so obviously pro-slavery. The fact is we are not talking about whether the Winchester repeating rifle was really invented by 1850. The abolitionists are painted as violent, crazy, murderous people, "the reason why Kansas is called Bloody Kansas." Anyone who knows anything about this tragic period knows that pro-slavery forces were first to engage in murder and pillage. John Brown was notable because he was the first free-stater who started murdering back, and he made a campaign of it. After that, wholesale murder was found on both sides. THAT is why they called it "Bloody Kansas." What we see in the movie, however, is only John Brown's violence, time after time. We also see simple-minded black folks who would have been better off if John Brown hadn't made them free and responsible for feeding themselves. You can try and enjoy the story for itself, but the ugly and badly slanted arguments against abolitionists (and by extension against any reform of Jim Crow Laws in the 1940s) make it appalling viewing.

When Santa Fe Trail was released in 1940 it was to general critical acclaim. Though it is in no way a classic like Gone With the Wind, it's view of the coming Civil War is not too dissimilar from the David O. Selznick film that also had Olivia DeHavilland as one of its stars. It was a popularly held view of the time, the abolitionists were well intentioned rabble rousers who brought on the Civil War and as Errol Flynn as J.E.B. Stuart says, the south will settle the slavery issue in its own time.

Back in the day even in A westerns like Santa Fe Trail, liberal use of the facts involving noted historical figures was taken. The fact that Stuart, Custer, Longstreet, Pickett, Sheridan, and Hood would all graduate West Point in the same class was really a minor bending of the rules. The following year with Errol Flynn as Custer in They Died With Their Boots On, they got Custer's graduation class right, but then compounded his life with more errors.

One interesting fact that no one mentions in this film is Henry O'Neill as the real life Cyrus K. Holliday (1826-1900) who considerably outlived just about everyone portrayed in the film. He's of critical importance in Kansas history as having built the Santa Fe railroad. His children neither went to West Point as William Lundigan, did graduating with all these Civil War heroes, nor did his daughter wind up marrying one.

Olivia DeHavilland playing her usual heroine, gets out of the crinoline for a bit as a Calamity Jane type daughter to Henry O'Neill. I have to say she showed quite a bit more spunk than her normal range of leading ladies at the time at Warner Brothers. She certainly Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan as George A. Custer on their toes.

If people remember anything at all about Santa Fe Trail today it is Raymond Massey as the fanatical John Brown. Yet even there, Brown has his hypocritical moments when he's quite ready to let a barn full of recent runaway slaves burn down so he can kill Errol Flynn in it. It doesn't ring true with the character as defined by Massey, I fault the scriptwriters there. Massey repeated his John Brown character in the later Seven Men From Now. Other than Abraham Lincoln it is the role that actor is most identified with.

As an action western though, Santa Fe Trail can't be beat. The battle scene with the army breaking John Brown's siege at Harper's Ferry is well staged. You really do think you are at Harper's Ferry watching a newsreel.

Though it never was history and hasn't worn well in its interpretation, western fans will still like Santa Fe Trail.

"Santa Fe Trail", a 1940 film that brought a number of rising stars together, mixes gross distortion of history with an unusual, compelling and honest confrontation with the age of slavery.

Hollywood's uses (and, more often, abuses) of history fascinate me. Some films try to stick close to accounts generally accepted while others openly employ characters from real life as a launch point for stories that have little to do with actual events (hey, if Shakespeare could do it...). Many films blend fiction with fact and, usually, they serve neither well.

Director Michael Curtiz's "Santa Fe Trail" is part western, part military history, part comedic romance. Olivia de Havilland, fresh from her "Gone With the Wind" adventure, plays a frontier girl with spunk - and an ability to keep her clothes clean almost always, no matter what. She is pursued by two young army lieutenants, the soon to be legendary Confederate cavalry office, J.E.B. Stuart (Errol Flynn), and the eventually to be killed with his entire command George A. Custer (Ronald Reagan sans Bonzo). The rival suitors are typically 1940s romantics - no unfair or nasty stuff here. So sweet is the path to nuptial bliss.

The story takes place before the Civil War when the Army tried to maintain peace between pro- and anti-slavery factions in Bloody Kansas. The army officers who actually are part of history are portrayed here as being all members of the West Point Class of 1854-that would make Custer about seven years younger and earlier in graduating than was the case). No big deal.

What makes this film a remarkable document is its unflinching, for the Hollywood of the 1940s, portrayal of the evil of slavery, the pain of blacks ensnared in its web and the thundering role of John Brown, played by Raymond Massey in a powerful, gripping performance.

John Brown, the abolitionist who in life and in the film murdered slavery supporters and seized the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia was a zealot, not a madman (he refused an opportunity to plead insanity at the trial which ended in his death sentence). Massey, one of the greatest actors of all time, captures Brown's total devotion to ending slavery - he projects passion, not psychosis. It seems to me that Massey had a picture of John Brown that he was determined to bring to life, the inane or frivolous parts of the film being totally irrelevant to his mission.

Hollywood before World War II generally treated blacks as minor props (waiters, Pullman car attendants, cooks and maids). Here a black family is traumatized by truly sinister racists. Brown's condemnations of slavery are taken from his speeches and writings. The film's producer and director and script writers took a major detour from the concerted Tinseltown effort to not produce any story that might cut into box office take in the South (and elsewhere-the North was no hotbed of campaigns for racial equality).

Worth seeing because of its unique take on slavery, for the time, and Raymond Massey's towering performance.

8/10.

Santa Fe Trail may not be great filmmaking, but it succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish and is generally satisfying viewing. Errol Flynn stars as J.E.B. Stuart, fresh out of West Point and now stationed at Fort Leavenworth in the Kansas territory, the starting point of the westward Santa Fe Trail. This was particularly hazardous country at the time, because abolitionist John Brown (Raymond Massey) was conducting violent raids along the trail. It quickly becomes the duty of Stuart and his pal Custer (Ronald Reagan) to capture Brown dead or alive, and put and end to his attacks.

There are many exciting sequences in the film, leading up to the final confrontation at Harper's Ferry. There's also a predictable romantic triangle between Flynn, Reagan and Olivia de Havilland. (Guess which one she picks!) The movie deserves credit for taking an objective viewpoint toward Brown, acknowledging that his motives were good even if his methods were not.

As Stuart, Flynn proves to be equally adroit in westerns as in swashbucklers. Reagan and de Havilland fill their less demanding roles with ease, and Alan Hale and Guinn `Big Boy' Williams provide much-needed comic relief. Massey somewhat overplays his hand as Brown, however. He comes off as too sanctimonious, more a cliché villain than a three-dimensional human being.

Apparently, the film is a travesty in terms of historical accuracy. Who cares? Movies are an entertainment medium. Anyone seeking facts alone had better confine their search to encyclopedias. Otherwise, just sit back and be amused.

It's so sad.

I loved this movie so much as a kid. Then I grew up and found out it was all a big contrivance. It almost quashed my love for this movie.

But the truth did not succeed to extinguish my love.

The entertainment value of this movie is astounding and sometimes thrilling - but the historical value is so misguided that it almost ruins it for me. I now feel that, though this movie makes a sham of history - - it is a great showcase for the wonderful talents of Michael Curtiz, Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan and Olivia de Havilland.

I particularly love the final rescue scene. It is choreographed and orchestrated so beautifully, it is hard not to be taken into the maelstrom of John Brown's destiny. Those battle trumpets still cause a chill to go up my spine.

Before I was old enough to understand the true nature of this tale, I visited Harper's Ferry and felt an honest chill when I visited the firehouse where John Brown and his men were captured. I touched the walls and stood in awe at being so close to such a fateful edifice.

It is now called John Brown's "Fort" because he was holed up in there for three days in October 1859. So close before the fateful Civil War embroiled our nation in its saddest chapter. But the building was a fire engine and guard house when it was built in 1848 and moved to Boston for display and then later, back to Harper's Ferry to a place about 150 feet east of its original location. The original location had become a railroad embankment...so it could not stand at the original spot.

Whatever you think about the historical inaccuracies of this film, its entertainment values are excellent for their own sake.

RAYMOND MASSEY is especially memorable as John Brown. His earnest and single-minded portrayal of a madman-with-a-quest is the great stand-out of this movie. The far-away gaze and fiery eyes are almost hypnotic in its concentration. I also enjoyed watching Ronald Reagan and Errol Flynn do their "stuff" as no one else can. These are actors that for better or worse will always stand out from the Hollywood fray with their own special brand of something indescribable and timeless.

Watch this movie with a grain or two or historical salt. Enjoy it for its sheer fun value.