Santa Fe Trail (film)
| Santa Fe Trail | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Michael Curtiz |
| Produced by | Hal B. Wallis |
| Screenplay by | Robert Buckner |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Max Steiner |
| Cinematography | Sol Polito |
| Edited by | George Amy |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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110 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1 million |
| Box office | 2,147,663 admissions (France, 1947) |
Santa Fe Trail is a 1940 American western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey and Ronald Reagan. Written by Robert Buckner, the film is about the abolitionist John Brown and his fanatical attacks on slavery as a prelude to the American Civil War. Subthemes include J.E.B. Stuart and George Armstrong Custer as they duel for the hand of Kit Carson Holliday.
The film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, and the seventh Flynn–de Havilland collaboration. The film also has almost nothing to do with its namesake, the famed Santa Fe Trail, except that the trail started in Missouri and the railroad could be built only after the Army drove Brown out of Kansas.
The outdoor scenes were filmed at the Lasky Movie Ranch in the Lasky Mesa area of the Simi Hills in the western San Fernando Valley. One can visit the film location site, now in the very large Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (a.k.a. Ahmanson Ranch), with various trails to the Lasky Mesa locale.
At the West Point Military Academy in 1854, the cadet Carl Rader (an agent of John Brown) (Van Heflin), is dishonorably discharged for spreading anti-slavery pamphlets. His classmates Jeb Stuart (Flynn) and George Custer (Ronald Reagan) become second lieutenants and are posted to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, the most dangerous duty in the army—an assignment they relish. On the way to Kansas, Custer and Stuart meet Cyrus K. Holliday, in charge of building the railroad to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his daughter Kit (de Havilland), with whom both officers fall in love.
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