As a history buff, I'm as appalled as many of the previous commentators about the historical inaccuracies of this film. Still, I think it succeeds as being a well-made story about John Brown and his battles against eight future Civil War generals (Stuart, Custer, Sheridan, Pickett, Longstreet, Hood and their superiors here, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, who was also a Conderate general before he became CSA president.)Despite its horrible historicity and being poorly titled, with only about 60 percent of the film set in Kansas on or near the Santa Fe Trail, this film gave Ronald Reagan a chance to shine in only his third big-budget motion picture in a costarring role. His portrayal of Custer as a gung-ho warrior bursting with braggadocio captured the essence of what would prove to be a fatal flaw in his character. In fact, there's a telling scene in Custer's first battle, where he warns Stuart that they're outnumbered 3 to 1 and his buddy advises him "If it makes you nervous, don't count 'em." That kind of advice must have have been offered to the real Custer before Little Big Horn. Ironically, Reagan gained fame playing another real historical character,Notre Dame football star George Gipp in KNUTE ROCKNE ALL-American, which was released two months before SANTA FE TRAIL. "The Gipper" nickname from the earlier film, given to Reagan in later years, served him well in his final role, which he assumed forty years and one month after the SANTA FE TRAIL release. Putting history aside, which Hollywood films still do today, this movie contains some excellent acting by its principal players and is brimming with action, comedy and romance, while being genuinely serious about the issues it raises without becoming too boring, all the things that film-goers wanted then and want now, whether it cost a quarter in 1940 or most of a ten-dollar bill today. Dale Roloff
Review of Santa Fe Trail
