Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

mayk1947 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.

FightingWesterner Nothing brings together Indians, anti-imperialist lefties, and white southerners together (albeit for different reasons) quite like their disdain for General George Armstrong Custer.Custer Of The West tries hard to walk a fine line between portraying the man as the cold, amoral, arrogant man his detractors claim him to be and the all American hero that others think he was. My opinion is that ultimately he was portrayed as the former.Robert Shaw is okay in the title role even though he barely manages to hold back his English accent, with frequent slips that he probably couldn't have gotten away with if the dialog wasn't so crisp.(Thank you Bernard Gordon.) The supporting cast does well too, especially Robert Ryan in his pointless cameo as the gold hungry deserter. Mary Ure is wasted as Mrs. Custer.What makes Custer Of The West worth viewing are the mesmerizing action sequences (well directed by Robert Siodmak) as the US Army and the Cheyenne each try to massacre their way to victory. I especially enjoyed the first person shots of the logging canal, the runaway train, and the out of control rolling wagon.The action hits a roadblock when Custer is called back to Washington. However, it does provide an interesting contrast between the officers in DC with the ones doing the real hard work out west.The climax at The Little Big Horn is an incredible and exciting spectacle.

warren_w_r SPOILER: Sorry, that should read *MINUS SEVERAL STARS* but they don't give me that option.I detest Custer and all he did post-Civil War. I'll start with that. I've been to the Custer Battlefield near Garryowen at least twice and feel that it is Holy Ground ... but not owing to the 7th Cavalry. Here ended the career of the man who would have been President, had his ambitions come to fruition. He would have also been remembered as the American Hitler.I've read historical accounts and military histories of the battle, National Geographic articles on the fascinating forensic examination archaeologists were able to make of the battlefield after grass fires swept away much of the overgrowth. And I've always been fond of saying that I can't watch him die on film enough times.((When he finally sent for Benteen and Reno, he had already charged into the trap: his message was (in part) "Bring rounds! P.S. BRING ROUNDS!" They were similarly ensnared in well-planned traps and could do little to help, however, not sitting on their hands protesting their sobriety in the shade of pleasant riverbank trees, let alone to each other: they were not together.)) Well, I just checked this stinker out from the local library, and I take my fond saying back. I've just seen him die one too many times. Or more accurately, I've seen *somebody* flog himself around on screen and *claim* to be Custer. I have no idea where he's flogging around, it certainly doesn't look like the Custer Battlefield -- not even remotely.Benteen is played in one of the worst performances I've ever seen from late and talented Jeffrey Hunter as a simultaneously wooden and spineless gopher; Reno as an incompetent and insubordinate drunken lout. The families of these competent (but overwhelmed) heroic officers should have legal recourse to sue director Siodmak for their portrayals in this travesty.Historically, geographically, politically, this movie crosses the line from "creative interpretation" to blatant twisting and reversal of anything resembling facts. Even Custer's portrayal in the wonderful farce, "Little Big Man", came much closer to the truth, and the California terrain that stood in for the Little Big Horn region in an old B&W "Twilight Zone" time-travel episode was more accurate than this.The whole film seems to have been concocted to give the Cinerama audiences a few roller-coaster moments (a runaway wagon ride, a log flume ride, there were a few forgettable others) and even these went on *long* after they'd already proved their point.A truly awful film. I'm taking it back to the library tomorrow first thing: it's drawing too many flies. I also want my 2 hours and 21 minutes back.

bard-32 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.