Land of the wicked
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Land of the wicked |
| Original title | Santa Fe Trail |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1940 |
| length | 110 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Curtiz |
| script | Robert Buckner |
| production |
Hal B. Wallis Robert Fellows |
| music | Max Steiner |
| occupation | |
| |
Land of the Godless (English original title: Santa Fe Trail, German title of the DVD edition: Land of the Cursed ) is a western by Michael Curtiz from 1940 with Errol Flynn , Ronald Reagan and Olivia de Havilland . The film is set in the years before the Civil War of 1861–1865, from the (fictional) joint senior class of several historically significant officers at the military academy in 1854 to the execution of violent slave opponent John Brown in 1859. The latter is the villain of the film, the wants to drive the US into civil war.
action
The film takes up real people and motifs from the 1850s for a fictional plot: James Ewell Brown Stuart , George Armstrong Custer and Carl Rader are officers in the US Army and graduates of the United States Military Academy in Westpoint. In the dormitory there is a fight between Rader and Stuart after Rader reads from the political writings of the radical slave liberator John Brown. Stuart comes from a wealthy family in the south. While Rader is expelled from the academy for political activity, Stuart and Custer receive their first military assignment. The two officers vie for the favor of the beautiful Kit Carson Holliday, whom they meet with her father Cyrus K. Holliday on the train going west.
Stuart and Custer's assignment is to escort a merchant caravan on the Santa Fe Trail through Kansas . This transport is ambushed by the radical slave liberator ( abolitionist ) John Brown . Brown is accompanied by Rader, who has become his advisor. After a violent confrontation, Brown has to flee, leaving his injured youngest son Jason behind. Stuart takes him to the fort, where the boy reveals the whereabouts of his fanatical and brutal father on his deathbed.
Stuart travels to Palmyra in civilian clothes, but is recognized by his military horse and captured by Rader. After a dispute with Brown about slavery, Stuart tries to escape; he is locked in a barn that the abolitionists set on fire. There are also freed slaves in the barn. Under Stuart's leadership, the trapped are able to free themselves, while Brown, Rader and their fellow soldiers flee from the advancing cavalry.
Stuart believes that this has broken Brown's power and travels east again with Custer. In Washington he becomes engaged to Kit. The greedy Rader, cheated of his wages by Brown, also appears in Washington and reveals Brown's plan to raid the Harpers Ferry armory and arm slaves for a rebellion. Brown can take the arsenal, but Stuart and his army defeat him. In the course of the fight, Brown kills the traitor Rader. Brown is captured, sentenced to death, and executed. Stuart marries Kit and goes on a honeymoon with her.
background
The film has little to do with the Santa Fe Trail, a historic trade route, but all the more with the prehistory of the Civil War and the violent actions of John Brown, who is considered by some historians to be America's first domestic terrorist. According to the hero Stuart, a southerner, the problem of slavery will be solved in a peaceful way, one just has to be patient. The female protagonist is impressed by Brown's passion and thinks there must be a strong idea behind it.
Slaves or blacks themselves only appear three times in the film, they are always passive creatures that Brown has persuaded them to be free. Most of all they long for their old, regular life in the south. Stuart treats them on friendly terms, while Brown only pursues his fanatical views, in a misguided religiosity, and moreover does not care about the fate of the slaves, his followers and even his own sons. Brown acts like a communist rebel from the time the film was made. In the film it remains unclear why slavery was controversial at all - namely, because it contradicts the American constitution and its promise of freedom (for all people).
The film looks several times ahead of the Civil War (1861–1865), the great conflict between northern states and (slave-holding) southern states. An old Indian woman predicts the laughing officers that they will soon fight each other in war. The film deals with the historical facts quite freely: For example, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis , who later became president of the southern states, has a daughter in the film who marries the future general of the northern states, Custer. In the view of the film, which calls Americans to unity, the later Civil War was tragically fueled by fanatical opponents of slavery.
The tense relationship between Flynn and Curtiz since the two western films Lord of the Wild West and Gold Smuggling to Virginia escalated during the filming of Land of the Wicked and ended in a violent argument.
synchronization
There are two different German dubbing adaptations for this film . In addition to the version for the German premiere on July 17, 1959, there is also a later version that has been shown since then.
| role | actor | Voice actor (1st version) | Voice actor (2nd version) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeb Stuart | Errol Flynn | Niels Clausnitzer | Randolf Kronberg |
| Kit Carson Holliday | Olivia de Havilland | Margot Leonard | Alexandra Ludwig |
| John Brown | Raymond Massey | Klaus W. Krause | Erik Schumann |
| Tex Bell | Alan Hale | Norbert Gastell | |
| Jason Brown | Gene Reynolds | Florian Halm | |
| Windy Brody | Guinn "Big Boy" Williams | Wolf Martini | KE Ludwig |
criticism
Joe Hembus judges that the film is "questionable despite the spectacular action scenes (...)" because he makes the wrong protagonist the villain with Brown. Brown is the more interesting figure that Stuart cannot stand up to.
Phil Hardy is of the opinion that the film is a “solemn , highly imprecise biography” of the young Stuart, a “would-be romantic western whose perspective is more restrictive than liberating” .
The lexicon of international films notes that the film is “despite the interesting subject, more of a solid average western”.
Web links
- Land of the wicked in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Joe Hembus: Western Lexicon - 1272 films from 1894–1975. Carl Hanser Verlag Munich Vienna 2nd edition 1977. ISBN 3-446-12189-7 . P. 338
- ↑ Land of the godless (2nd synchro) in the German synchronous index; Retrieved August 15, 2009 .
- ^ Phil Hardy: The Encyclopedia of Western Movies. Woodbury Press Minneapolis 1984. ISBN 0-8300-0405-X . P. 112
- ↑ Land of the wicked. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .