They Died with Their Boots On

Dismiss factual inaccuracies liberally sprinkled throughout the film's more than two-hour length and you have an adventure tale of frontier days which for sheer scope, if not dramatic impact, it would be hard to equal. Read full review

Absolutely irresistible. Read full review

If one can ignore the blatantly fictitious nature of this Hollywood "biography" of the still-controversial George Armstrong Custer, THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON is a wholly entertaining movie, fueled by Raoul Walsh's direction and Errol Flynn's energetic performance. Read full review

The liberties which the screen writers have taken with well established and authenticated facts are likely to be a bit trying in spots. But the test of the yarn is not its accuracy, but its speed and excitement. Of these it has plenty. Read full review

It may be questionable history (though the film is anything but jingoistic), but it is superb filmmaking, personal and vigorous. Read full review

An unusual epic, the first half is a knockabout comedy, but thoroughly entertaining. Read full review

Even if historical erroneousness intermittently undermines the film’s outlandish attempts at lionization, They Died with Their Boots On endures as one of the finest Flynn-de Havilland collaborations, providing a grand stage for the duo’s playful, poignant rapport. Read full review

Definitely not a documentary. Still, just try not to get a little choked up when Custer, leaving to his death, tells his wife, "Walking through life with you ma'am has been a very gracious thing." [19 Apr 2005, p.E1]

As history, it's mostly bunk. Flynn's Custer is a heroic, high-spirited, Indian-respecting dunderhead prone to plunging into battle without thought and winning the day in spite of overwhelming odds (until, of course, the odds catch up with him). Dramatically, however, it's much more interesting. Read full review

They Died With Their Boots On is a shameful whitewashing of history. Great battles, though. Read full review

Vigorous traditional western starring Errol Flynn at his most dashing as a conventionally heroic, glory-seeking George Armstrong Custer, whose career the film traces (without too much concern for historical accuracy) from West Point through the Civil War to the catastrophe at the Little Big Horn. [14 May 2006, p.2]

Errol Flynn deifies Gen. George Armstrong Custer in a silly though well-directed biopic. [25 May 2001, p.C1]