Cinema: Custer of the West

The first major mistake in the career of George Armstrong Custer was his promotion to major-general during the Civil War: he flailed through Virginia with a cavalryman’s flair that killed as many of his own men as those of the Rebels. After the war, as a brevet brigadier. Custer was assigned to Indian Territory and left part of his troop to canter back to his wife for “home leave.” Two of his men were slaughtered en route. His final error occurred on the Little Big Horn, when Custer led more than 200 men to their deaths in an ambush by Sioux and Cheyenne on June 25, 1876.

Nonetheless, Custer was celebrated in the press and by his wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, who published her romanticized memoirs of the late “Yellow Hair” in 1885. The Custer cult was heightened in 1941, when Errol Flynn played him as a bold unfortunate in Warner Bros.’ They Died with Their Boots On. In this new film, Custer’s misbegotten career is further enhanced. Robert Shaw plays Yellow Hair as a soulful glory seeker. Lawrence Tierney is a feisty General Phil Sheridan, Jeffrey Hunter a conscientious Lieut. Benteen and Robert Ryan a deserter named Mulligan, who was shot before the battle. Despite an overabundance of horseflesh, this Custer comes much closer to the complex nature of its anti-hero than any earlier treatment.