Customer Reviews

Santa Fe Trail

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

An excellent film, but a horrible DVD.
A wonderful movie is ruined by the pathetic quality of this disc. This is the absolute worst transfer to DVD I have ever seen. It looks as if it was taken from an incredibly well worn VHS copy.

this is one of errol flynn's lesser movies but it is still a great action packed western about john brown before and after his raid to try to start a slave revolt. as history it doesn't come even close to the truth,but it moves so fast and has some great battles so i'm willing to give it a break.
i can not say the same for this transfer! the picture gets so dark at times i had to turn the brightness up all the way just to see some scenes and the audio has a lot of drop outs and pops so that you can't hear it at times. wait til abetter copy comes out as this one is just no good

This is an excellent film! I especially liked the fact that they portrayed John Brown as he really was in real life. You don't see that very often.

Truly an exciting film - Errol Flynn performed wonderfully.

i knew about the retelling of history in this film. it was still an ok western set before the civil war that looks at a very hollywood version of john brown and his raid to start a slave revoilt just before the civil war.i won't list all the things they got wrong but they are many. still i liked this one when i was little and bought this one to show my boys. well it looked so bad they asked me to put another movie in and i did. the movie i give 3 stars the transfer i give 1 only because you can't give zero

The movie itself is great, lots of fun to watch. However, my reason for purchasing it was to see the credits at the end. My gr-gr-grandfather's name appears in the credits in other versions of this movie, and I purchased 3 copies to share with siblings. Alas, there were no credits at the end - none whatsoever. The movie was good - refreshing and enjoyable.

Santa Fe Trail is a Hollywood production of chasiing John Brown through Kansas and finally capturing him in Harpers Ferry in 1859. This Black and White epic takes much poetic license with what actually happened, but is a fun movie to watch. Raymond Massey is great as John Brown. I use the movie in my John Brown class. If you want the real story of what happened at Harpers Ferry and John Brown's capture, check out my book a historical novel "The Perfect Steel Trap Harpers Ferry 1859".

If the very poor quality of the transfer of this film to DVD is any indication of what to expect from Alpha Video Distributors, I will not knowingly buy another Alpha Video product. As for the movie itself, it's pretty good, aside from taking some minor liberties with the historical record. Inadvertently it's also quite revealing in regard to what American cultural attitudes were like in the era when this picture was made (1940). This is a movie that could not be produced in today's atmosphere of political correctness, and numerous scenes are likely to raise eyebrows among present-day audiences.

This movie can be bought at most discount stores for $1, however these are very poor copies. Stay away from any movie that lists Ronald Reagan as the star. I recommend you buy the Marengo double feature version. It's been restored and you get two movies for the price of one.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, this movie has an all star cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havalin, Raymond Massey, Van Heflen and Ronald Reagan. This a pre- Civil War movie and not a western. Great acting but a plot that is not considered politially correct. This movie favors the South with Errol Flynn playing the hero, JEB Stuart. It traces his life from when he graduates from West Point to Harper's Ferry. Probably the most glaring mistake historially, is that Stuart graduated from West Point in 1854 and George Custer graduated in 1861, after the Civil War started. Stuart was involved in Bleeding Kansas, and Harper's Ferry, but George Custer wasn't present any of these events and there is no evidence that they were friends. Raymond Massey was brilliant as a crazed John Brown (remember this is a Southern point of view) and some effort was made to make him look like the person. However, there was no effort to make Flynn look like Stuart nor Reagan to look like Custer. JEB has light Austrailian accent (like Flynn). Olivia is very good as Kit Carson Halliday.

What a wonderful film. Too bad it isn't an accurate portrayal of events. Errol Flynn and Ronnie Raygun are in fine form as Jeb Stuart and George Custer respectively, but John Massey steals the show masterfully as John Brown. The racism that bubbles under the surface is the only thing keeping me from giving it five stars. So entertaining is this picture that one could easily be lured into its fantasies, especially if you aren't educated in history. John Brown was no villain; he was a true American patriot who dedicated (and ultimately gave) his life to rid our land of genocide. The sense of forboding over the foundation being laid for our Civil War is palpable, but again, the film tends to mislead one into the conclusion that slavery, not preservation of the Union, was the motivating factor. That's acribing too much false nobility to many Unionists who could have cared less about abolishing slavery. So, enjoy the film, yes, but temper it with a heavy dose of those dusty old history books. You may just learn something...and it may just change your opinions of political events unfolding before us today.