The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876.
Captain Blood is a 1935 American black-and-white swashbuckling pirate film from First National Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by Harry Joe Brown and Gordon Hollingshead, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Ross Alexander.
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American epic swashbuckler film from Warner Bros. Pictures. It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and written by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller.
Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn was an Australian-American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland, and reputation for his womanising and hedonistic personal life. His most notable roles include Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which was later named by the American Film Institute as the 18th-greatest hero in American film history, the lead role in Captain Blood (1935), Major Geoffrey Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and the hero in a number of Westerns such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City and San Antonio (1945).
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland was a British and American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. At the time of her death in 2020 at age 104, she was the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and was widely considered as being the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Her younger sister, with whom she had a noted rivalry well documented in the media, was Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine.
Dodge City is a 1939 American Western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Ann Sheridan. Based on a story by Robert Buckner, the film is about a Texas cattle agent who witnesses the brutal lawlessness of Dodge City, Kansas and takes the job of sheriff to clean the town up. Filmed in Technicolor, Dodge City was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. This was the 5th of 8 movies that de Havilland and Flynn appeared in together.
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
Crazy Horse was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by White American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866, in which he acted as a decoy, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people.
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument preserves the site of the June 25 and 26, 1876, Battle of the Little Bighorn, near Crow Agency, Montana, in the United States. It also serves as a memorial to those who fought in the battle: George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry and a combined Lakota-Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho force. Custer National Cemetery, on the battlefield, is part of the national monument. The site of the connected military action led by Marcus Reno and Frederick Benteen is also part of the National Monument, but is about 3 miles (4.83 km) southeast of the main site.
Elizabeth Bacon Custer was an American author and public speaker who was the wife of Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer, United States Army. She spent most of their twelve-year marriage in relative proximity to him despite his numerous military campaigns in the American Civil War and subsequent postings on the Great Plains as a commanding officer in the United States Cavalry.
Gall, Lakota Phizí, was an important military leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He spent four years in exile in Canada with Sitting Bull's people, after the wars ended and surrendered in 1881 to live on the Standing Rock Reservation. He would eventually advocate for the assimilation of his people to reservation life and served as a tribal judge in his later years.
Virginia City is a 1940 American Western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, and a mustachioed Humphrey Bogart in the role of the real-life outlaw John Murrell. Based on a screenplay by Robert Buckner, the film is about a Union officer who escapes from a Confederate prison and is sent to Virginia City from where his former prison commander is planning to send five million dollars in gold to Virginia to save the Confederacy. The film premiered in its namesake, Virginia City, Nevada. The film was shot in black and white (sepiatone).
The Horsemeat March of 1876, also known as the Mud March and the Starvation March, was a military expedition led by General George Crook in pursuit of a band of Sioux fleeing from anticipated retaliation for their overwhelming victory over George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Poorly rationed and hampered by muddy conditions, the soldiers eventually had to butcher and eat their horses and mules as they became lame or injured. The Horsemeat March ended with the Battle of Slim Buttes and the capture and looting of American Horse the Elder's richly stocked village.
Santa Fe Trail is a 1940 American western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn as J. E. B. "Jeb" Stuart, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey as John Brown, Ronald Reagan as George Armstrong Custer and Alan Hale. Written by Robert Buckner, the film is critical of the abolitionist John Brown and his controversial campaign against slavery before the American Civil War. In a subplot, Jeb Stuart and George Armstrong Custer—who are depicted as friends from the same West Point graduating class—compete for the hand of Kit Carson Holliday.
The Charge of the Light Brigade is a 1936 American historical adventure film from Warner Bros., starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Samuel Bischoff, with Hal B. Wallis as the executive producer. The film's screenplay is by Michael Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, from a story by Michael Jacoby, and based on the 1854 poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The music score was composed by Max Steiner, his first for Warner Bros., and the cinematography was by Sol Polito. Scenes were shot at the following California locations: Lone Pine, Sherwood Lake, Lasky Mesa, Chatsworth, and Sonora. The Sierra Nevada mountains were used for the Khyber Pass scenes.
Four's a Crowd is a 1938 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Rosalind Russell and Patric Knowles. The picture was written by Casey Robinson and Sig Herzig from a story by Wallace Sullivan. This was the fourth of nine films in which Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland appeared.
George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) was a United States Army cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. He was defeated and killed by the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. More than 30 movies and countless television shows have featured him as a character. He was portrayed by future U.S. president, Ronald Reagan in Santa Fe Trail (1940), as well as by Errol Flynn in They Died With Their Boots On (1941).
The Male Animal is a 1942 American comedy-drama film produced by Warner Bros., starring Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
Chief Crazy Horse is a 1955 American CinemaScope Western film directed by George Sherman and starring Victor Mature, Suzan Ball and John Lund. The film is a fictionalized biography of the Lakota Sioux Chief Crazy Horse. It was also known as Valley of Fury.
