Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Fantastic!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

A fairly good film, which tries to change the idea that Custer was only an Indiankiller. It gives a fair image of the problems he had with the white mens hunger for territory. It looks like this film is in fact the center image of a Cinerama film. It's full of spectacular scenes and people are cut off at the edges of the screen. Sound on the other hand is very spacious and full of effects. The film shows in the beginning a Cineramatitle.

Okay gang, this is a deeply flawed Custer movie. There is no getting away from that. Yet, if you have any interest at all in the Custer legend (notice I said legend - any relationship to real history and this movie is purely coincidental), and want to see a riveting performance by Robert Shaw, complete with an absurd English accent for Custer, this is a must see movie. Besides the imaginary history, the geographical locations presented for the story exist only in the minds of the screen writer and director. Despite this, I could not get over how much I liked watching Shaw present his interpretation of Custer. For all the weaknesses in the script, Shaw was given some great speeches to make, demonstrating the tragedy of plains Indians. No matter how ugly the near genocide of them as a people and the total genocide of their culture, and there is no excuse for any of it, they were the victims of events that were pre-determined once Europeans set foot on North America. A point perfectly captured in the movie in the confrontation between Custer and an American actor posing as a representative Indian chief.For myself, the worst part of the movie, which I was enjoying up to this point, was the Last Stand. Who cares whether it was accurate or not. When was the last time Hollywood ever made any movie about any historical event or person that was not clearly fiction in many aspects? What bothered me, was the fact it was done on the cheap. Custer had around 260 men with him, in the movie, he might have about 50. There is just no drama in watching a big action sequence that falls flat because you were not willing to hire more extras.Still, I guess this movie is one of my guilty pleasures. If you like action movies or Robert Shaw, give it a look.

SPOILER: The film centers about general Custer (Robert Shaw) and wife (Mary Ure), though takes liberties with historical facts. George Armstrong Custer's career begins when is graduated in the known Military Academy of West Point and after that, he intervened in American Civil War where detaches in battle of Gettysburg. General Sheridan (Lawrence Tierney) assigns him the command a regiment at Fort Abraham Lincoln . In 1869 Custer and his 7th Cavalry carried out the massacre of River Washita where one hundred Indians and their chief Black Kettle were murdered. Two officers (Jeffrey Hunter and Ty Hardin)will help him to face off Indians with the warring chiefs Dull Knife (Kieron Moore),Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse and their tribes Sioux ,Cheyenne, the Awpahla and the Munikhanja until the final battle of Little Big Horn (1876) where was exterminated with his entire command.This movie well produced by Philip Jordan blends good action scenes, shootouts,adventures and it's quite amusing because happen many deeds and is fast moving and for that reason is neither boring, nor dreary, but entertaining . George Armstrong Custer's complex characterization with an unusual point of view is well performed by Robert Shaw who does a nice embodiment of this Western hero . The final exciting confrontation between Custer army and Indians is spellbound and breathtaking similar to ¨ They died with the boots on (1941) ¨ with Errol Flynn and directed by Raoul Walsh .The film obtained a limited success in spite of the important budget and spectacular sets. Robert Shaw interpretation as a hippie-type, long-haired, is top notch ,unfortunately he early died, this is his the last film . His wife in the real life, Mary Ure also being early dead . Direction by Robert Siodmak is average , in spite of a long career with many cinema classics (Criss Cross,The killers,The spiral staircase, The suspect) and the film is mediocre and is his last film too. Cecilio Paniagua's cinematography is glimmer and fascinating and photographed in Super Technirama 70, the outdoor scenarios are overwhelming , this is the best of the film . Bernardo Segall musical score is sensible and moving and played by Royal Philarmonic orchestra. Splendidly staged battles with obligatory cast of hundreds is realized by the art directors Eugene Lourie and Julio Molina. The motion picture will appeal to biopic enthusiasts and Indians western buffs.Other adaptations about this historic character culminating in thrilling battle of Little Big Horn are the following : ¨Santa Fe trail¨ by Michael Curtiz with Ronald Regan as Custer ; ¨Great massacre Sioux¨ by Sidney Salkow with Philip Carey as Custer and Iron Eyes Cody as Crazy Horse ; ¨Little Big Man¨ by Arthur Penn with Richard Mulligan as Custer ; ¨Son of the morning star¨ TV miniseries by Mike Robe with Gary Cole.

This is the first time, the VERY FIRST TIME, I've ever, EVER, given a movie I've reviewed here a 1. Hopefully, it won't be the last. But this movie, this abomination of politically correct claptrap, won't be remade any time soon. Custer of the West tells the highly fictionalized story of Lt. Col., Brvt. Maj, Gen. George Armstrong Custer, (Robert Shaw,) who comes to the conclusion that our treaties with the Indians are a sham. Nobody cared how we treated the Indians in the 19th century. By 1876, the era of Lewis and Clark was long over, and the attitude of the American people had changed. They wanted the Indians off their land. (Funny, because the Indians, the Sioux, and Northern Cheyenne, thought that the land was theirs, and that we were the intruders.) Maybe we were, Land, religion, and a clash of cultures, have always fueled, or caused, wars. The movie was the worst movie I'd ever seen, and I saw it back in 1974.