Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (August 27, 2025)
Over the decades, the views of 19th century US General George A. Custer have clearly shifted as perceptions of his era have come to be seen differently. However, those perspectives remained less common in 1941, which leads to the heroic depiction we find in that year’s They Died With Their Boots On.
In 1857, 17-year-old George Armstrong Custer (Errol Flynn) arrives for a military education at West Point. Brash and arrogant, he stacks up demerits due to his behavior.
Nonetheless, the outbreak of the Civil War sends Custer into action, and he displays skills that allow him to rise through the ranks. While he maintains a relationship with wife Libbie (Olivia de Havilland), Custer spends his post-war life in the US western territory, a location that leads to his death at Little Big Horn in 1876.
Spoiler alert? One hopes not, as I can’t imagine anyone would watch Boots without foreknowledge of Custer’s fate.
The question becomes how the viewer swallows the movie’s interpretation of Custer’s demise. As I noted at the start, for decades Custer enjoyed a reputation as the noble hero who went down swinging.
Honestly, it seems best to look at Boots solely as a work of fiction and not as a biopic. In that vein, how does it fare as a piece of cinematic entertainment?
Pretty well, really. Whatever flaws it possesses as history, it compensates with fairly solid drama.
Boots proves more sympathetic to Natives than I anticipated. I figured this would become a “white people good, savages bad” take but the film gives the Natives more respect than I figured I’d find.
Indeed, the real villain of Boots comes from the primitive “military-industrial complex” it depicts. The film shows how wars start/progress more to support profits than for other reasons. This gives Boots a more cynical air than I expected.
Despite these flourishes, Boots mostly exists as a rushed look at Custer’s life from 1857 to 1876, and it places an emphasis on his romance with Libbie. While I like Flynn and de Havilland as a screen couple, their scenes don’t mesh well with the rest of the flick.
At 141 minutes, Boots can seem too long. Sometimes the story rambles and becomes unfocussed.
Nonetheless, the tale comes with enough intrigue and adventure to keep us with it. A good lead performance from Flynn helps.
Granted, it seems more than a little comical to observe 32-year-old Flynn as a teenaged Custer, but the movie eventually catches up with his age. In addition, Flynn plays the part with such gusto that I don’t really mind the age issues.
Given all the ground and character development the role requires over 19 years, Flynn does a pretty terrific job. He depicts Custer’s evolution in a natural and compelling manner.
A solid supporting cast helps, as we find folks like Hattie McDaniel, Sydney Greenstreet, Charley Grapewin, Arthur Kennedy, Anthony Quinn and Gene Lockhart. The sight of Quinn as a Native prompts some unintentional laughs, but he still does what he needs to do in the part despite the lack of racial verisimilitude.
At no point do I think Boots becomes a great – or even really good – film, and its fictionalized take on history causes some concerns. Still, if just taken as a piece of dramatic entertainment, it satisfies.
