Santa Fe Trail

Michael Curtiz: Santa Fe Trail (US 1940). Kit Holliday (Olivia De Havilland) and J. E. B. Stuart (Errol Flynn).

Michael Curtiz: Santa Fe Trail (US 1940). The hanging of John Brown.

Michael Curtiz: Santa Fe Trail (US 1940). Kit Holliday (Olivia de Havilland), daughter of the railway magnate Cyrus K. Holliday, carrying a major responsibility in the building of the Santa Fe Trail. The rivals J. E. B. Stuart (Errol Flynn) and George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan).

Michael Curtiz: Santa Fe Trail (US 1940). "The Navajo Cassandra": the woman fortune teller Old Stick In The Mud (n.c.) predicts the future to incredulously laughing West Point graduates. Translating her is Kit (Olivia de Havilland) who knows the Navajo language. The Navajo prophesies that this is one of the last times they would meet as friends and that soon they would be bitter enemies. Standing: Phil Sheridan (David Bruce), George Pickett (William Marshall), James Longstreet (Frank Wilcox), John Hood (George Haywood), George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan) and Jeb Stuart (Errol Flynn). Sheridan and Custer became Union officers, the rest, Confederate Officers. Stuart died in battle in 1864, Custer in 1876 in the Battle of Big Horn.

Michael Curtiz: Santa Fe Trail (US 1940). Slaveholder J. E. B. Stuart (Errol Flynn) helped by Blacks who have escaped via the Underground Railroad.

Michael Curtiz: Santa Fe Trail (US 1940). Slaveholder J. E. B. Stuart (Errol Flynn) helped by Blacks who have escaped via the Underground Railroad.

La Piste de Santa Fe / Santa Fen sankari / Vägen till Santa Fe.
Michael Curtiz / États-Unis / 1940 / 110 min / 35 mm / VOSTF
Avec Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan.
La Cinémathèque française : Rétrospective Warner Bros., fabrique de stars
Viewed at Salle Georges Franju, vendredi 14 avril 2023, 8h30 20h20
La Cinémathèque française " 1854 : les États-Unis se forment peu à peu, mais l'esclavagisme du Sud gêne de nombreux Américains, dont John Brown, fanatique abolitionniste qui commet des massacres pour libérer les esclaves. "
" En 1854, au Kansas, les soldats Jeb Stuart et George Custer se lancent sur la piste de John Brown, un abolitionniste fanatique engagé dans une croisade meurtrière pour libérer les esclaves. "

AA: It was a huge pleasure to see for the first time Santa Fe Trail, which I have always missed, although the movie has been telecast in Finland several times. It was theatrically released in Finland in 1941 but never re-released.

I'm a big fan of Michael Curtiz, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, and they are all at their best here. The second golden age of the Western had started the year before, in the golden year 1939 of the Western, and this rousing epic spectacle proceeds with such irresistible vigour and energy that the drawbacks of the screen story and the royal disregard for historical accuracy do no fatal harm.

This was the seventh of the eight collaborations between Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. They were not lovers but they were in love, and it shows in every scene in which they are together. Their genuine warmth and mutual attraction is an essential counterweight to the tragedy of "Bloody Kansas".

Errol Flynn plays J. E. B. Stuart, later a Confederate general, while Ronald Reagan plays George Armstrong Custer, later a major general in the Union army. In this movie's fairy-tale world, they are fellow West Point graduates and rivals in love. In the next and last Flynn-de Havilland collaboration, They Died With Their Boots On, as wildly inaccurate as Santa Fe Trail, Flynn got to play Custer.

Michael Curtiz had proven his craft and skill already in Europe. He was able to evoke epic grandeur, a sense of history and passion in romances. He was uniquely capable of bringing life to the often lethally boring genre of the historical epic. As a director of actors he was electrified by rebellious men and women.

Captain Blood was a turning-point for all three: it made stars out of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, and it launched Curtiz to the most illustrious period of his career. For Warner Bros. the collaboration was more than a goldmine. It promoted in terms of engrossing entertainment the studio's sense of social and historical responsibility, defending liberty and equality in a period of growing tyranny.

Curtiz is at his best in the many rousing battle scenes of this movie. They are epic and exciting. They are also often truly scary, perhaps because they are all too realistic. Flynn made only one more film (Dive Bomber) with Curtiz, a bit of a tyrant himself, before turning to the more congenial Raoul Walsh.

The railway story in Santa Fe Trail seems like an afterthought, a mask and a screen, another counterweight to the tragedy and the bloodshed. The railroad founder Cyrus K. Halliday, a historical figure, is played by Henry O'Neill. Olivia de Havilland plays his daughter "Kit Carson" Holliday. It is one of de Havilland's best and most original roles. She is bright and uninhibited and carries major responsibilities in the building of the railway. Hers is a memorable portrait of a Western woman. She loves Jeb Stuart, the man from the past, but is herself a woman of the future.

Kit is also the interlocutor and translator to the "Navajo Cassandra": the woman fortune teller Old Stick In The Mud (n.c.) who predicts the future of the West Point graduates: soon they will be fighting each other. They laugh at her.

I am aware that Santa Fe Trail is an increasingly awkward film in today's America. John Brown (Raymond Massey) is portrayed in caricature as a raving lunatic. His cause is true but his action in this movie is seen as disastrous, and, incredibly enough, a key reason for the Civil War.

This is the first Western I have seen with John Brown as a character, which tells more about my limitations than those of the Western genre.

This is also the first Western I have seen about the Underground Railway. I have happened to see several Westerns recently relevant to the Civil War. Common to all is that they do not even mention Blacks, to speak nothing about slavery. Santa Fe Trail includes Blacks, and the conviction and the passion in the movie's heart is for equality and fighting slavery.

The hanging of John Brown is the shocking climax, staged by Curtiz in the starkest imagery evoking Weimar Expressionism and foreshadowing film noir. We register the pain on the faces of Kit and Custer who are among the witnesses. It is a "victory in defeat" scene. John Brown may have been a deranged fanatic (at least in this film), but the future is his, and in death he becomes immortal.

The Black characters, harassed and threatened, escaping via the Underground Railway to Palmyra, receive our total love and sympathy, but they are shown as passive victims to be helped by white liberators, even by Jeb Stuart, who rescues them from a burning barn and is himself rescued by them in one of the most moving scenes of the film. Adding insult to the injury of the treatment of the Blacks in this movie, after the ordeals in Kansas, the Blacks are seen yearning back home in Texas.

Originally released in sepiatone, we saw Santa Fe Trail in a black and white 35 mm print. In the beginning the visual quality was great, but perhaps the viewing print has been assembled from several sources with variable quality and status of wear and tear, never inferior. In general it conveyed the visual grandeur of Curtiz and his trusted cinematographer Sol Polito well.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM WIKIPEDIA:

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Plot

At West Point Military Academy in 1854, cadet Carl Rader (Van Heflin), an agent of John Brown, is dishonorably discharged for instigating a brawl among the cadets after distributing anti-slavery pamphlets which his classmates disapprove of—due to the controversial nature of the pamphlets (some believed the issue of slavery to be one that would inevitably resolve itself) and the U.S. Army's position against the pursuit of ideological causes while serving. Following the brawl, Rader's classmates Jeb Stuart (Errol Flynn) and George Custer (Ronald Reagan) become second lieutenants and are posted to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, the most dangerous duty in the Army—an assignment they relish. On the way to Kansas, Custer and Stuart meet Cyrus K. Holliday, in charge of building the railroad to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his daughter Kit (Olivia de Havilland), with whom both officers fall in love.

The Kansas Territory is bloodstained and war-torn, a victim of John Brown's (Raymond Massey) relentless crusade against slavery. Meanwhile, Rader has enlisted as a mercenary in Brown's army, which has been terrorizing the countryside and freeing slaves. During Brown's attack on a freight wagon under the protection of the U.S. Army, Stuart and Custer capture Brown's injured son Jason (Gene Reynolds) and, before he dies, the troubled boy informs them about his father's hideout at Shubel Morgan's ranch in Palmyra. In disguise, Stuart rides into Palmyra, the center of the Underground Railroad, but Brown's men spot his horse's army brand. He is captured and taken to Brown at gunpoint. Attempting to escape, Stuart is trapped in a burning barn but is saved as Custer leads the cavalry to the rescue, driving Brown into seclusion.

Three years later, in 1859, believing that Brown's force has been broken, Stuart and Custer are sent back to Washington, D.C., where Stuart proposes to Kit. However, Brown is planning to re-ignite war by raiding the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. When Brown refuses to pay Rader for his services, Rader rides to Washington to alert Stuart of Brown's plans, and the troops arrive just in time to crush the rebellion. Brown is then tried for treason by the state of Virginia and hanged. The movie ends with the marriage of Stuart and Kit.

Cast

    Errol Flynn as James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart
    Olivia de Havilland as Kit Carson Holliday
    Raymond Massey as John Brown
    Ronald Reagan as George Armstrong Custer
    Alan Hale as Tex Bell
    William Lundigan as Bob Holliday
    Van Heflin as Carl Rader
    Gene Reynolds as Jason Brown
    Henry O'Neill as Cyrus K. Holliday
    Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as Windy Brody
    Alan Baxter as Oliver Brown
    Moroni Olsen as Robert E. Lee
    Ward Bond as Townley
    Erville Alderson as Jefferson Davis
    David Bruce as Phil Sheridan
    Spencer Charters as Conductor
    Creighton Hale as Telegraph Operator (uncredited)
    Jack Mower as Surveyor (uncredited)

Historical inaccuracies and modern criticism

There are several major inaccuracies with many of the characters and timeline depicted in the film. First, JEB Stuart, George Custer, and Philip Sheridan, as well as George Pickett, James Longstreet, and John Bell Hood are all depicted as classmates in the same graduating class at West Point and all stationed in the Kansas territory at the same time. In reality they graduated at different times–Stuart in 1854, Custer in 1861, Sheridan and Hood in 1853, Pickett in 1846, and Longstreet in 1842. This depiction of these future Union and Confederate officers adds an element of foreshadowing predicting the coming American Civil War conflict, in which former American officers would be forced to choose sides following Southern secession. Second, future Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce in 1854 (the time set at the beginning of the film), was not in this Cabinet position by the time of John Brown's raid of Harper's Ferry in 1859. By then, the position was being held by John B. Floyd, a member of the Buchanan administration.

This film takes substantial liberties with other historical facts:

    Stuart and Custer, while they did attend West Point—albeit at different times—and fought against one another at the Battle of Gettysburg, were never personally acquainted.
    Jason Brown did not betray his father to the US Army. He was briefly a prisoner of war, but, after John Brown sought his son's rescue, he arranged for Jason to be exchanged as a POW.
    Jason Brown was not killed in Kansas. One of Brown's other sons, Frederick, was shot by Reverend White.
    Stuart served in the 1st Cavalry Regiment, and Custer served in the 2nd and 5th Cavalry Regiments.
    Custer was never in Kansas Territory; he was stationed there after the Civil War when Kansas had already become a state.
    The character of Carl Rader, expelled from West Point and assisting (later betraying) John Brown, did not exist.
    The U.S. Cavalry did not assault the Harper's Ferry engine house that was occupied by John Brown; it was taken by U.S. Marines who incurred two casualties (one dead, one wounded).
    The railroad into New Mexico was not begun until 1879, 20 years after the fictional events in the film.
    The characters in the film carry Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army revolvers, which did not exist in 1859.
    Jefferson Davis did not have a daughter named Charlotte, who is introduced to George Custer in 1859 in the movie. His daughters were Margaret Howell Davis, who was born in 1855 and thus would have been 4 years old in 1859, and Varina Anne Davis, who was born in 1872.
    Cyrus K. Holliday did not have a son named Bob or a daughter named after Kit Carson. His children were actually named Charles King and Lillie Holliday, respectively. And the maiden name of the real Mrs. "Jeb" Stuart was Flora Cooke.

To this day, some historians describe the figure of John Brown as a monomaniacal zealot, others as a hero for his violent tactics in the name of emancipation. The film depicts the character of John Brown generally as an antagonist, showing the valor of the principles of abolition but criticizing the methods by which Brown pursued his crusade. In the film, Brown eagerly endorses breaking apart the union of the United States and further bloodshed as a means to bringing an end to slavery, ultimately seeing his own demise as a sacrifice made to further the cause of abolition. The movie was made on the eve of the United States' entry into World War II, and its tone and political subtext express a desire to reconcile the nation's dispute over slavery which brought about the American Civil War and appeal to moviegoers in both the Southern and Northern United States. The American Civil War and abolition of slavery are presented as an oncoming tragedy triggered by the actions of an anarchic madman. The film seems to place blame for the outbreak of the Civil War on John Brown and the abolitionists perpetuating the violence of the Pottawatomie Massacre in Bleeding Kansas, but many other factors over a longer period of time. These include the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott Decision, none of which are addressed in the film. In many scenes, including one with a Native American fortune teller, the heroic protagonists are unable to foresee how the issue of slavery could make them bitter enemies in the near future, even though by mid- to late-1850's hostility between the pro- and anti-slavery states had already reached a boiling point.

To some modern viewers, the depiction of some of the black slaves seeking freedom may appear as insensitive or inaccurate in some cases. Many of the black people in the film appear to be passive or dependent on the will of John Brown as an emancipator. Slaves brought by Brown's Underground Railroad to the North seem to be following orders of the abolitionist, without any driving motive of their own to flee slavery. Slaves in Kansas wait to be told they are free by John Brown; he then specifically declares them all free in one scene. Later, several who remain behind after their "emancipation" muse about their days serving masters South in a less than negative light. Trapped in a burning shed, several John Brown's black followers are rescued by Jeb Stuart. One black woman confidently boasts to Jeb Stuart as she's bandaging his wounds. Jeb yelps: "Ouch, that's too tight, Mammy." Mammy retorts: "Don't tell me how to do this, boy! I've been wrapping white folks all my life. When they was babies, I wrapped one end, and when they growed-up and took on too much corn liquor, then I wrapped t'other end!" Jeb laughs: "Ah, what made you leave home?" Mammy: "Well, Old John Brown said he's gonna give us freedom, but shuckins, if this here Kansas is 'freedom', then I got no use for it. No, sir." Then, a black man adds, "Me, neither. I just wants to get back home to Texas and sit till Kingdom Come."

A 2019 review by Filmink magazine stated "This would be the least highly regarded of the 'Dodge City' trilogy. Warners had a strong track record when it came to illustrating the dangers of Nazism, but they were not crash hot on the topic of African-American history. No studio was in 1940 but Santa Fe Trail is especially dodgy."

Availability

Santa Fe Trail entered the public domain in 1968 when United Artists Television (then the owners of the pre-1950 WB library, inherited from Associated Artists Productions) did not renew the copyright. As a result, the film later became widely available on VHS, LaserDisc and DVD as well as freely available for internet downloading.

In 1988, a colorized version was produced by Color Systems Technology for Hal Roach Studios, and released on VHS (VidAmerica, 1990). Turner Entertainment released a higher-quality VHS than was previously available (MGM/UA Home Video, 1998). Turner's library is part of the television division of Warner Bros., the original distributor.

Although not fully restored, higher-quality editions have been released in Germany on DVD (Intergroove, 2011) and Blu-ray (WME Home Entertainment, 2017).

Wikipedia