Santa Fe Trail is a Western film directed by legendary director Michael Curtiz (Doctor X, Casablanca) that features a fantastic cast that includes Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale, Van Heflin, and former United States President Ronald Reagan. The film takes place in 1854, just before the Civil War.
The story mainly has to do with John Brown (Raymond Massey, Things to Come) who was fighting to end slavery just before the Civil War took place. Jeb Stuart (Errol Flynn, The Adventures of Robin Hood) and General George Custer (Ronald Reagan, Hellcats of the Navy), who have recently become second lieutenants, are given a dangerous assignment to go to Fort Leavenworth, in The Kansas Territory to thwart John Brown’s crusade against slavery and resume building a railroad to Santa Fe, New Mexico. On their way to Kansas, Custer and Stuart meet Cyrus K. Holliday (Henry O’Neill, Shadow of the Thin Man), who oversees the building of the railroad to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his daughter Kit Carson Holiday (legendary actress Olivia de Havilland, The Dark Mirror). After meeting Kit. there is a love triangle with Kit, Custer, and Stuart in the film’s subplot. Once they arrive in The Kansas Territory a violent battle between John Brown, his agent Carl Rader (Van Heflin) Jeb Stuart and their forces engage in a fierce battle over slavery begins with lots of bloodshed.
I enjoyed Santa Fe Trail, even though the film is historically incorrect and inaccurate. For one thing, both Stuart and Custer were never acquainted. There are plenty of other historical flaws in the film but if you can ignore that, you will enjoy it for the great acting and superb battle scenes
Warner Archive releases Santa Fe Trail on Blu-ray. The picture quality for this release is outstanding with rich textures and great details to the scenery and characters. Black levels are deep, with a great array of whites and grays. Film grain is present throughout. The entire picture looks smooth, polished and has never looked any cleaner than you will see in this release.
Warner uses a English 2.0 Mono DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack for this release, which is also excellent. The lossy audio is flawless the with dialog coming in clearly with action noises such as gunshots, which there’s plenty of, sounding quite aggressive. Max Steiner’s rousing musical scores are also loud and clear. There is plenty of depth to the audio. Audio defects such popping, hiss sounds, or other audio distortions were not detected.
A theatrical trailer is the only extra.
Regardless of how you feel about Santa Fe Trail with all the historical inaccuracies, you can’t argue about how magnificent it looks and sounds. Highly recommended!
Santa Fe Trail
Director- Michael Curtiz
Cast- Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Warner Archive / Warner Home Video
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date – 11/3/2021