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June 21st, 2020 | #1 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,278
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Santa Fe Trail: down with abolition!
So they want to ban Gone With the Wind and kick it off Netflix. Pity, because a movie they would really want to strangle and choke is Santa Fe Trail, made in 1940, an Errol Flynn/Olivia de Havilland western with lots of action, sweep, romance, and manages to talk about slavery. Not only that, but credibly presents the Southern view.
Okay, ignore the inconsistencies, such as Errol Flynn playing Jeb Stuart and Ronald Reagan as George Custer, classmates at West Point in 1854 (they were, but not as classmates), and ready for graduation. The only canker in cadet life is Cadet Raeder (a surly Van Heflin), and abolitionist who openly distributes its pamphlets, leading to a fight between him and Flynn, who argues 'the South will solve the problem in its own time and way.' They're hauled before superintendent Robert E. Lee (a majestic Moroni Olsen). Olsen lets Stuart go, although sending him to a dangerous assignment upon graduation, but dismisses Raeder for bringing politics on campus (true: cadets were forbidden any kind of political discussion or reading.) Raeder vows to get even. Graduation is presided over by Jefferson Davis as secretary of war (true; he was), and Flynn and Reagan get into a rivalry over Kit (deHavilland), who is a feisty girl from Kansas, the dangerous assignment they've been posted to.Kansas is trying to get a railroad through, but can't because of struggles between pro and anti slavery factions, the latter led by John Brown (a frightening and almost Biblical Raymond Massey.) Brown has just slaughtered pro-slavers in Pottawatomie, and when a shipment of 'Bibles' (actually rifles) is intercepted by Flynn, the fighting starts. Raeder has joined forces with Brown, and although checked by Flynn, is a formidable adversary. It leads back east, where Flynn's romance of Kit is interrupted by Brown, financed by northern abolitionists (true), seizes Harper's Ferry and use its arsenal to lead a slave insurrection (very true). Lee is ordered to stop him. The rousing battle in the film wasn't quite so in real life. Lee used a company of marines, but Stuart was there and did deliver a surrender ultimatum to Brown. Brown is beaten, hung, but not before he prophesizes a 'holy, bloody war' to end slavery. Flynn and deHavilland are happily wed on a train going to Kansas. This movie was always a childhood favorite of mine, and has lots of action with Flynn's usual derring-do, but the movie does portray the slavery/anti-slavery argument in favor of the south, and it must be emphasized this was the establishment view: slavery maybe wrong, it needs to be settled, but America has no use for armed insurrection against the government to begin it. Brown is shown as a fanatic willing to see his sons die for this cause, and Massey plays him like an evil Moses. There's no real endorsement of slavery, but the story shows layers of complications in the 1850's. Stuart, Lee and Davis are shown as Americans who have respected places in the government. A system Brown yearns to destroy. What about slaves? The ones in the movie are passive, kind, uneasy, wanting freedom but not sure what to do with it. When Brown frees some slaves and they some a rousing spiritual, one asks 'What's going to happen to us? Who's gonna take care of us?' Brown only replies they are now one their own, in God's hands, and goes out to finish off Flynn. At one point, Brown sets a barn on fire to kill Flynn, Flynn fights his way out, taking some blacks who got caught in it. A woman says 'if this is what freedom is like, I'd just as soon be a slave.' Maybe cringing, but historically, slaves really had no say either way. They were waiting for the white man to do something…like they kind of are today. I note to that in a lot of BLM riots, whites were in the forefront of action, especially white women. Nowadays, any sympathy for the Southern viewpoint is Thoughtcrime, and Santa Fe Trail would no doubt be at the top of the heap of a BLM book burning. It's a nascent WN film you should see. It was available in the cheapie bins at Wal-Mart and supermarkets. If you can, see it. |
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