They Died With Their Boots On

I’m not quite sure why I have this DVD… perhaps I bought it for the 1940s movie project, but didn’t use it?

It could be the Raoul Walsh connection — he’s pretty spiffy, isn’t he?

Anyway.

So this is Errol Flynn as Custer, the guy who had that stand. Hm… West Point? Is that a southern or northern thing? Oh, it’s in New York.

And then they play “Dixie” while they let the officers that have decided to fight for the secessionists march off south. This is portrayed as the heroic thing to do.

Well, yes.

Flynn accidentally negs Olivia de Havilland, so: Romance.

I guess the point of this movie is to stir patriotism for the fight against Nazi Germany, but it’s a bit annoying: There’s a stirring orchestra er stirring all of the time, and I’m getting a bit stir crazy.

Flynn’s pretty good in this? He’s convincingly jaunty.

What… is that Hattie McDaniel? She looks so much younger than in Gone With The Wind from a couple years earlier.

She’s totally hamming it up. I love it.

Callie tells it like it is.

McDaniel’s got all the lines.

I started watching this movie in a kind of bad mood, but it’s really winning me over. The funny scenes are very amusing indeed, the action scenes are plenty exciting, and the romantic scenes are very awww.

It’s firing on a lot of cylinders.

He’s a celeb now.

He’s so evil!

Anyway, I assume that this is all a fantasy, but it’s a pretty nice fantasy… but… it’s really dragging in parts. I feel like an hour could have been cut without losing anything of value.

They Died With Their Boots On. Raoul Walsh. 1941. ⚃