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The new group of cadets at West Point in 1857
includes George Armstrong Custer, a flamboyant dresser with long curls, who
wants to experience the glory of war. During his time at the military
academy, Custer commits many infractions and his classroom performance
leaves much to be desired.
When Abraham Lincoln is elected president, and
civil war breaks out, Custer is eager to graduate and join the battle.
While on a punishment tour, Custer meets pretty Elizabeth Bacon, known as
Libby, and arranges to meet her later that evening. Before their
rendezvous, Custer, like many other cadets, is graduated early and sent to
Washington, D.C. to wait for a commission.
In Washington, Custer's bad reputation prevents
him from receiving an immediate commission. Tired of waiting, he
charms Lt. General Winfield Scott into inviting him to lunch and then
confesses his dilemma. Scott has him assigned to the Second U.S.
Cavalry. At the Battle of Bull Run on 21 July 1861, Custer disregards
orders and leads his men in an attack on the enemy. He is wounded in
battle and sent home, but later receives a medal.
While on leave, Custer plans a visit to Libby to
apologize for standing her up at West Point. Before he arrives at her
house, Custer encounters Samuel Bacon and, not knowing that he is Libby's
father, quarrels with him. Libby is delighted to see Custer and
readily forgives him but, when she introduces him to her father, he angrily
throws Custer out. Custer and Libby meet secretly that night, and
Custer promises to marry her when he becomes a general, reasoning that her
father could not possibly object to him then.
Custer rejoins his regiment and is made a
general of the Michigan Brigade by mistake. At the Battle of
Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, Custer again attacks against orders and the
brigade loses many men, but Confederate general Jeb Stuart is driven back.
Custer continues to distinguish himself in the war and, after it is over,
Bacon agrees to Libby's marriage.
With the end of the war, however, Custer is out
of work. Ned Sharp, one of Custer's fellow cadets, offers him the presidency
of a corporation he has formed with his father to develop the Dakota
Territory but, when Custer learns he will only be a figurehead, he turns
down the offer.
Once again General Scott comes to the rescue,
this time at Libby's request, and Custer is posted to Fort Lincoln in the
Dakota Territory. The fort is in total disarray when Custer and Libby
arrive. Sharp has opened a trading post that sells rifles to the
Indians and also runs a bar that has resulted in a drunken corps of
cavalrymen. Custer whips the soldiers into shape, closing both the bar
and the trading post.
Under his leadership, the Seventh U.S. Cavalry
wages war on the Indians. When Crazy Horse's Sioux agree to move away
from their land as the U.S. government has ordered, on condition they are
allowed to retain the sacred land in the Black Hills, Custer promises he
will defend their rights there. The Sharps's corporation, however, has
plans to run a railroad through there in order to bolster its failing
business, and the Sharps work behind the scenes to have Custer relieved of
his command. In response, Custer accuses Major Romulus Taipe of
falsely announcing the discovery of gold in the Black Hills.
Learning of an approaching battle with the
Indians under the leadership of Sitting Bull, Custer begs to be returned to
his command. On June 25, 1876, to save Brigadier General Alfred Terry
from certain defeat, Custer sacrifices the entire Seventh Cavalry in the
Battle of Little Big Horn. Afterward, Libby presents a letter sent to
her by Custer before his death. In his dying declaration, Custer
renews his accusations against Taipe, who is forced to resign and return the
Black Hills to the Sioux.
Notes
Screenwriter Wally Klein's surname is spelled Kline in the onscreen credits.
Biographical sources give the following information about George Armstrong
Custer: Custer had a distinguished career during the U.S. Civil War,
ending as the army's youngest major-general, and was known for his
relentless pursuit of General Robert E. Lee. In 1865 Custer was
court-martialed and suspended without pay for one year for harsh treatment
of his troops. He was reinstated to counter the increased hostility of
the Plains Indians, and in 1875 he took command of Fort Abraham Lincoln in
the Dakota Territory. In 1874, Custer led an expedition to confirm the
rumored existence of gold in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.
The character of Romulus Taipe was invented for the film. When the
Sioux did not comply with a government order directing all Indians to move
onto reservations by January 31, 1876, war broke out. Custer, under
the command of General Alfred Terry, led his soldiers to total defeat at the
Battle of Little Big Horn. Not a single soldier of the 250 men under
his command survived. Custer was buried with military honors at West
Point on October 10, 1877. Following his death, his widow wrote and
lectured about his life and championed his deeds. Controversy over
Custer's conduct at Little Big Horn continues to this day.
Papers included in the Warner Bros. Collection
at the USC Cinema-Television Library add the following information about the
production:
Joan Fontaine,
Olivia De Havilland's sister, turned down the role of "Libby" and
Priscilla Lane, Elisabeth Fraser and
Nancy Coleman were all tested for the part. Michael Curtiz was the
studio's original choice to direct. Writer Lenore Coffee was hired to
strengthen the romantic scenes between
Errol Flynn and
Olivia De Havilland.
A number of people were injured during the
battle scenes: Jack Budlong, a twenty-eight-year-old stuntman, died
after falling from his horse on to his sword, and untrained rider George
Murphy was killed when he fell from his horse while drunk. Scenes were
shot on location at Busch Gardens in Pasadena, the Warner Ranch in
Calabasas, California, Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, California and at nearby
Lasky Mesa. Second unit director B. Reeves Eason directed much of the
Battle of Little Big Horn footage. He had previously co-directed (with
Michael Curtiz) the final battle scene in Warner Bros.' 1936 film
The Charge of the Light Brigade. An HR news item reports
that a shortage of Native Americans in Hollywood led Warner Bros. to import
Sioux from a reservation in the Dakotas. The USC files note that
sixteen Dakota Indians worked in the film. The film was completed
twenty-six days behind schedule. In his autobiography Raoul Walsh
states "I tried to show the Indian as an individual who only turned
vindictive when his rights as defined by treaty were violated by white men."
This was the eighth and last film in which De Havilland and Flynn starred
together. Some modern sources state that
Eleanor Parker played a bit role in this film, but her name does not
appear on the CBCS.
Among the other films about Custer are the 1909
Selig Polyscope film On the Little Big Horn or Custer's Last Fight,
starring Paul McCormick, Jr.; the 1916 Vitagraph film Britton of the
Seventh, directed by Lionel Belmore and starring Darwin Karr and Charles
Kent; Custer's Last Fight, a 1925 re-issue of a Thomas Ince film, and
the 1926 Universal film The Flaming Frontier, directed by Edward
Sedgwick and starring
Hoot Gibson and Anne Cornwall; the 1936 Weiss Productions film
Custer's Last Stand, directed by Elmer Clifton and starring Rex Lease;
the 1968 U.S. - Spanish co-production Custer of the West, directed by
Robert Siodmak and starring
Robert Shaw, Mary Ure and
Robert Ryan; and the 1991 ABC Television film Son of the Morning Star,
directed by Mike Robe and starring Gary Cole, Rosanna Arquette and Dean
Stockwell. |
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