One of the great partnerships in the movies is also one of the most overlooked. Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland made eight films together of which "They Died With Their Boots On" was the last. It's the biography of General George Armstrong Custer from West Point to the Battle of Little Big Horn but with the warts ironed out while historically it's far from the most accurate of films. Flynn, of course, is Custer and while he was never much of an actor he had a charm few other actors of the period could muster. Incredibly handsome and with a personality to match he could make the most banal material interesting while De Havilland, here cast as the missus, seemed incapable of giving a bad performance.
Directed by Raoul Walsh, for the most part this is rousing entertainment with a great supporting cast but unfortunately it also comes across as deeply, if perhaps unintentionally, racist though I suppose you have to look at it from an historical perspective, (it still leaves a bad taste). Two years after winning an Oscar for "Gone With the Wind" Hattie McDaniel is playing another appalling variation of her 'Mammy' character. McDaniel was a superb actress dished by Hollywood; here she's not only a 'Mammy' character but a Mammy who can tell fortunes. And don't even get me started on the treatment of Native Americans, (here just pesky Red Skins), with that famous 'Indian' Anthony Quinn as Crazy Horse.. However, if you can overlook these faults this remains as stirring an epic on the infamous Custer as we've seen; just don't believe it.
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