Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

edwagreen Outstanding pre-civil war drama. I guess that Raymond Massey was destined to freeing the slaves. Not only is he John Brown in this terrific film, the same year he was Abe Lincoln in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois."There is so much irony here with the characters of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee playing union officers in hot pursuit of anarchist Brown, the latter's violent anti-slavery position would lead him and his family to ultimate doom.Olivia De Havilland vies for the affection of Ronald Reagan and Errol Flynn, the latter a southerner in the Union Army.We see the divisions of the ultimate catastrophe in West Point and with the John Brown fiasco.

kmechem Even some of the reviews that criticize the distortion of history seem not to know just how wrong, how upside-down the events in this movie are. As one who spent over a year researching John Brown, I can tell you that this film is based on prejudice and long discredited sources. There have been many excellent biographies of Brown in the last couple of decades that are objective, fair and open-minded. If you are interested in the truth of the events so mangled in "Santa Fe Trail," here are two books you could read: "To Purge This Land with Blood" by Stephen B. Oates (1971), and "Patriotic Treason" by Evan Carton (2006). This movie portrays Brown as an evil fraud who is really an enemy of slaves. In reality, Brown remains the greatest white hero to African-Americans. Some pseudo-historians have called him the first terrorist. Terrorists kill innocent civilians massively and randomly. The five men executed by Brown's followers at Pottawatomie were carefully selected. They were participants in the pro-slavery terror in Kansas which had already resulted in the murder of six free-state men and in the sacking of Lawrence; they had declared war on the Browns and other abolitionists. The killing at Pottawatomie was a terrible deed, but a just reprisal in Brown's biblical view. And from a historical perspective, we may ask whether Americans have not always supported fighting back against terror and oppression. It always amazes me to hear John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry denounced by the same Americans who glorify the colonial farmers who killed British soldiers on their way back from Concord. As if "taxation without representation" was in any way commensurate with slavery, "one hour of which," in Jefferson's words, "is fraught with more misery than ages of that which (the colonials) rose in rebellion to oppose."Of course I realize that for some people, standing up for the truth is just being PC. But they won't have been able to read this far anyway.

thinker1691 Robert Buckner wrote the screenplay for this movie called " Sante Fe Trail " and was directed by Michael Curtiz. Whatever both men thought of the finish movie who can say, one thing is for sure, neither man ever made another such mess. Historically, the story is very one sided and presented John Brown (Raymond Massey) as nothing more than a raving lunatic. In addition, the title of the film is supposed to be about the Trail through the state of New Mexico. Within the scope of the story, audiences are offered a new crop of West Point cadets all of which are friends shortly before the Civil War. Errol Flynn plays Jeb Stuart. while Ronald Reagan plays George Custer and Olivia de Havilland, trying to select from the two. Far fetched as that is, the audience spends more time watching John Brown fight with the U.S. army, instead of the scenery along the trail. Were it not for the comic relief of Alan Hale or the serious addition of Van Heflin, the movie would have have garnered little more than a ho-hum. With the sounds of conflict rising and falling due to the emerging sound systems, the movie rates low as an exciting adventure story. ***

lmbelt A classic Flynn-DeHaviland film no doubt. But as an adequate depiction, or attempt at, historical fiction... well, not hardly. If you love a good western, love triangle, or Errol Flynn action epic, this is definitely the one to catch. As for the facts, well why bother. Being a Civil War buff, the extreme inaccuracies of the story line and fictionalized accounts of the principal characters was, for me, a major distraction. But as a film buff, hey what's not to like? Lots of action, great scenery, a handsome cast, and two zany, Shakespearean sidekicks.The biggest distraction for me was the grouping of West Point graduates. It is simply ludicrous beyond belief. For example, James Longstreet graduated from the Academy in 1842, John Hood and Phil Sheridan in 1853, J.E.B. Stuart in 1854, and George Armstrong Custer in 1861 (prematurely at that). Yet here they are all happy-go-lucky classmates sharing the same graduation class and thus assigned to Fort Leavenworth upon leaving West Point. In actuality, Custer was only 19 and still at West Point when John Brown was captured! This is not to say the depiction of commandant Colonel Robert E. Lee is not wonderful. It is. That of Secretray of War Jeff Davis is actually better! A blind hog finding an acorn, make that two acorns, maybe? In the film, the arsenal at Harpers Ferry is surrounded by mountains (a good thing), even if it is in no way surrounded by a town (not so good). And Brown's raid is staffed by about ten times the actual number that took the arsenal. Probably the saddest misrepresentation, however, is the lack of any black raiders, of which there were a few, including the first raider to have been killed.Yet this is still a very entertaining movie and one not to be missed by Flynn fans, Reagan worshipers, DeHavilland admirers (of which I am one), or John Brown worshipers (of which I am not). Where that train at the end is headed is anyone's guess since the track was probably not yet laid. But that's what Hollywood was about back then. Maybe the train was taking the crew back to L.A.