They Died With Their Boots On

Never did Walsh's reputation as an action director and master of period flavour fit more comfortably. Cheerfully agreeing that history is bunk and printing the legend, he turns what is essentially a biopic of George Armstrong Custer (Flynn at his most dashing) from West Point to Little Big Horn into a glorious Western. Few facts here, but what matter when the fiction of Custer as tempestuous cavalier and Indian sympathiser, chivalrously dying to save his army colleagues and simultaneously acknowledge the validity of Crazy Horse's cause, has the breathless sweep and dash of the last romantic gesture. Absolutely irresistible.