They Died with Their Boots On (1941) on Netflix
Approved19412h 20mBiographyDramaRomance
Custer arrives at West Point in a self-designed uniform, taken for a visiting dignitary. Demerits pile up, senior cadet Ned Sharp gives him trouble, and Elizabeth Bacon catches his eye.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/107,612 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes82%
Trailer
Plot summary
George Armstrong Custer enters West Point, where a self-designed uniform gets him mistaken for a visiting dignitary. His academic record does not improve, and demerits accumulate for pranks and poor discipline. A senior cadet, Ned Sharp, makes his life miserable. On enforced silence he cannot answer Elizabeth Bacon when she asks him for directions. When the Civil War breaks out, his class is graduated early and ordered to Washington, D.C., for assignment.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Three men were killed during the making of They Died with Their Boots On: one fell from a horse and broke his neck, another stuntman had a heart attack, and actor Jack Budlong insisted on using a real saber to lead a cavalry charge under artillery fire.
- Jim Thorpe, who appears as an uncredited Native American warrior in the film, reportedly had an off-camera fight with Errol Flynn and knocked him out with one punch.
- Only 16 of the extras used as Native American warriors were Lakota, and the rest of the warriors were mostly portrayed by Filipino extras.
- The filmmakers hoped to shoot the climactic Little Bighorn sequence near the actual site of the battle, but scheduling and budget constraints relegated the finale to a rural area outside Los Angeles.
SPOILER
The film shows Custer leading a saber charge and being the last man alive at the Little Bighorn, but in reality his men had boxed their sabers before the battle and evidence suggests Custer may have been among the first to die.- The film portrays Custer as faithful to his wife Libby, but in reality he was alleged to have unofficially married a Cheyenne woman named Mo-nah-se-tah and had children with her; some historians say his brother Thomas was the father.
- They Died with Their Boots On was the eighth and final film in which Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland starred together, though the two later guest-starred together in Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943).
- Warner Brothers recycled some of the film's music, and variations of it can be heard in Silver River and Rocky Mountain, both starring Errol Flynn, and in The Searchers starring John Wayne.
