SANTA FE TRAIL no stars

"Santa Fe Trail" is one of the oddest westerns ever made. It pits John Brown's Abolitionists against the US Cavalry, paints Brown as the most black-hearted of villains, even if clearly he was on the side of 'right' and shows him as the real architect of the Civil War. Historical accuracy is banished to the sidelines as this epic of sorts covers a lot of territory, both literally and metaphorically. Michael Curtiz directed, though here that's not necessarily for the best, and again Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland are the romantic leads with Ronald Regan as a young George Custer, Raymond Massey as Brown and Van Heflin as a weakling and even at this early stage of his career Heflin is the best thing in the movie. The script is something of a stinker; the movie is half over before you get an inkling as to what it's actually about or what it's political point of view might be, (let's just say it's a distant cousin of "The Birth of a Nation" and leave it there). Curtiz just about handles the set-pieces with a degree of professionalism though there is some very misguided comedy. It's certainly no-one's finest hour.