"Santa Fe Trail" is another of the big-budget Warner Bros. westerns Errol Flynn made in the late '30s and early '40s, and not one of the better ones. Though it has the usual Warner Bros. panache, and the action scenes are exciting and extremely well staged, it's done in by a script that, irregardless of its definitely racist overtones, just isn't very good to begin with; its Neanderthal attitudes about race just make it that much worse. The movie is rife with historical inaccuracies, but the film is "based" on an historical incident, not a recreation of one. Sure, the film would have been better if they had the real story of the pro- and anti-slavery battles in Kansas, or told the real story of John Brown, but you have to take this film for what it is--a vehicle for Errol Flynn. If you want a history lesson, turn on the Discovery Channel. Yes, the script demonizes John Brown and pretty much ignores any crimes of the pro-slavery forces, and deserves to be criticized for that, but it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. If anything, it's a good example of the attitudes toward race held by many people in America of the early 1940s, and not just Southerners of the pre-Civil War era.
The film does tend to come to a grinding halt when things get preachy (it isn't entirely pro-slavery, after all). Ronald Reagan's character makes a somewhat surprising admonition to Flynn about how Brown's ideas are good and his philosophy is gaining adherents in the country (but when Flynn tells him that the South doesn't need a "fanatic" like Brown telling them what to do, Reagan relents and says, "You're right, Jeb, I'm sorry." Ah, well, it was a start, anyway.)
If you take this movie for what it is--a somewhat slow-moving, not particularly well written film salvaged by bursts of rousing action--it can be enjoyed on that level. Using modern social standards to judge a 1940s film about the 1850s serves no purpose other than to tick off the people doing it, and if that's what turns you on, so be it.
The film does tend to come to a grinding halt when things get preachy (it isn't entirely pro-slavery, after all). Ronald Reagan's character makes a somewhat surprising admonition to Flynn about how Brown's ideas are good and his philosophy is gaining adherents in the country (but when Flynn tells him that the South doesn't need a "fanatic" like Brown telling them what to do, Reagan relents and says, "You're right, Jeb, I'm sorry." Ah, well, it was a start, anyway.)
If you take this movie for what it is--a somewhat slow-moving, not particularly well written film salvaged by bursts of rousing action--it can be enjoyed on that level. Using modern social standards to judge a 1940s film about the 1850s serves no purpose other than to tick off the people doing it, and if that's what turns you on, so be it.