A film that tells of a lost time and makes you wish the past was so straight and narrow - but you know they weren't. The West Point scenes are startlingly affable, a pre Civil War paradise of manhood where Stuart, Custer, Sheridan, Hood, etc. line...
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A film that tells of a lost time and makes you wish the past was so straight and narrow - but you know they weren't. The West Point scenes are startlingly affable, a pre Civil War paradise of manhood where Stuart, Custer, Sheridan, Hood, etc. line up to drop their saddles off one-by-one under the eyes of the wise Robert E. Lee. Abolitionist cadets square off against southern officer candidates like it's a conflict between two fraternities.

Errol Flynn turns in the usual heroism as J.E.B. Stuart, Reagan is a solid if boring Custer, and of course, Olivia de Havilland is around to lend a love interest and source of male rivalry.

The question of slavery is raised throughout the movie, even on the train on the way to Kansas, but it's only scratched skin deep in the dialog. Whatever complexity there was to the conflicts between slavers and free soilers is more to set up a human drama. The clash of the men behind the issues is at the forefront, but the issues themselves are kept under wraps. And the heart of the movie is John Brown, memorably played by the thundering Raymond Massey. He steals the show here - and frankly, is the character who really stands for something.