Spikeopath Custer of the West is directed by Robert Siodmak and written by Bernard Gordon and Julian Zimet. It stars Robert Shaw, Jeffrey Hunter, Lawrence Tierney, Ty Hardin, Mary Ure and Kieron Moore. It's a Cinerama production with music by Bernardo Segall and cinematography by Cecilio Paniagua. Film is a very loose telling of George Armstrong Custer's military life from 1861 up to his death at Little Big Horn in 1876.It's the word disjointed that springs to mind once one has sat thru this attempt at an epic telling of George Custer's (Shaw) demise. Right thru the film nothing ever plays out right; Shaw's accent, the historical facts, Segall's score sounding like it belongs in a comedy, Cinerama scenes thrown in without due care for narrative, jumbled intentions of the makers in what they want to say, wooden prop acting (Ure falls in for mannequin duties), Spanish location for filming one of the American West's most famous battles and the final battle itself is short, weak and befits the penny pinching feel of the whole movie. Undeniably the ambition is there, with the odd moment of visual splendour, but it plods when it should be sprinting and tedious in dialogue when it should be perking up the ears. As good as Siodmak (The Killers/Criss Cross) was at directing low budget noirs of the 40s, here he is without impetus and inspiration and you have to wish that original choice to direct, Akira Kurosawa, had indeed gotten hold of the project.Shaw at least adds intensity and part of the screenplay has honourable intentions to be sympathetic to Native Americans, but ultimately the film as a whole is a disjointed experience. 4/10

daver6 I think I am a member of a minority who found this film enjoyable! I did not notice that the film was filmed in Spain, nor the historical inaccuracies particularly though I watched a documentary once that showed Little Big Horn as a hill. I just took it as an interesting film with some great actors and lovely scenes of swift moving calvary.I believe the film was trying to show the contradictions and sense of unease in doing his duty in Custer's (presumably) complex character through the many scenes; though Robert Ryans irritating scenes were totally superfluous and revealed nothing of Custer as desertion was a capital/flogging offence in any army. Robert Shaw gave a good performance of a taciturn commander searching for glory. As to his English accent that people keep winging about I thought it fairly subdued and after all we do not really know how Custer sounded. Moreover, I will wager these same reviewers did not complain at Gregory Peck portraying an Englishman in films like The 'Guns of Navarone' or that other great American actor (you know who) portraying Sir Thomas More in 'A Man for all Seasons'.........(Robin Hood anyone?) The music is stirring though for the final battle I thought the director must have previously watched The 300 Spartans. The circling indians seemed a tad silly, but for all that a very watchable film.

Kakueke Various elements of this movie make it worth seeing, but this does not include the Last Stand itself, which is poorly done, a big disappointment. It fails in every category. After Lieutenant Colonel Custer (Robert Shaw) returns from giving testimony in Washington, he abruptly tells Captain Benteen (Jeffrey Hunter) and Major Reno (Ty Hardin) of the three-way march against the Sioux and Cheyenne that will take place, and the Seventh Cavalry takes off. There is no captivating dialogue. The scenes are rigid, unorganized, uninteresting, with no substantive interpretation of the cavalry's movements. The death of Custer is done in a pathetic, historically inaccurate attempt at dramatics that completely backfires. The viewer is left with no sense of drama or legacy of the battle. Still, the rest of the film is interesting. It represents a good effort at capturing the real-life chemistry of Custer and the flavor of the period's conflict between whites and Indians in the Midwest/Dakotas.**The comments below may contain spoilers**Custer is not portrayed like the hero in "They Died with Their Boots On." Instead, the portrait of Custer in this film seems close to the truth. "Custer of the West" was made only two years before "Little Big Man," during the Vietnam War. But it is not a satirized Custer that is presented; rather, it is a straight-shooting one. Robert Shaw plays Custer the glory hound, the one who desires action, the military man who will execute his duties without regard to whether they offend one's sense of ethics in mistreatment of Indians. He is a cold, rigid, hard-ass person. He takes over his camp with a preoccupation for discipline in the face of lazy soldiers who want to feign diseases when Indian-fighting duty calls. Major Reno is put down for his well-known alcoholism, and Custer makes clear to Captain Benteen he does not care about Benteen's sense of honor toward the Indians. It is an historical fact that Benteen hated Custer and refused to aid him when Custer requested help at The Battle of the Little Bighorn ("Custer's Last Stand"). This film seems to want to explain why.Would you really find the person described in the previous paragraph interesting? Libby Custer (Mary Ure) is worked into the movie more than incidentally, but nowhere are the inner workings of the man explored, with her or anywhere else. Shaw's Custer is an impersonal Custer, without much in emotions. Still, as he is cast, Shaw puts on a good performance, and I disagree with some of the commentators on this board who say he displays an English accent. He sounds American.The early parts of the film have a number of scenes involving good action, with some imagination, and wide-open-space cinematography. Whites are encroaching on Indian land; they are interested in mining and railroads. Indians attack railroads and stagecoaches and, at one point, a large white settlement celebrating Independence Day. Custer has a couple of minor skirmishes with the Indians. In one, he pursues the Indians across a desert and attacks them from below the rock face they have scaled in their retreat. As for major action, Custer's Seventh Cavalry, on orders from General Phil Sheridan, attacks and destroys Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle's village in the Battle of the Washita River, in Kansas. General Sheridan had been Custer's Civil War commander and long-time patron, and he was the one who gave Custer his post in the Dakotas. He calls Benteen a "bleeding heart" for being sympathetic to the Indians. Sheridan claims he has told all his officers "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." The real-life Sheridan claimed he never said that. Regardless, it is an historical fact that he was contemptuous of the Indians, and his attitude represented the mindset of the time. In the battle, The Seventh Cavalry kills not only Black Kettle and numerous warriors, but many women and children. Director Robert Siodmark holds back nothing in presenting what occurred in Custer's only major engagement against the Indians before the Last Stand.The most important scene of the film occurs after this battle. It, rather than the Last Stand, encapsulates the movie. A Cheyenne Indian visits Custer's HQ to ask him about his intentions, as Custer correctly perceives. Custer makes it clear he is not a moralist. He is not in a position to make the substantive decisions, he is an officer in the army, and will obey orders. If that involves trampling the Indians in violation of some ethical notion, so be it. Custer tells the Indian the problem is that the whites are more advanced than the Indians. He tells him that the Cheyenne were stronger than tribes from whom they took land, so they can expect the same from the whites who want their land. Later, the writers try to acquit Custer a little bit by 1) his remarks that the railroad being built will just lead to trouble from the Indians and complaining about what the Indians have to put up with and 2) his testimony in Washington on Indian Bureau corruption that the "Indian Problem" is the fault of the policymakers. This is historically true; according to Custer's testimony, corruption in the granting of Western post traderships and various other dishonest dealings were cheating Indians as well as the U.S. Cavalry. However, although the film presents miners intruding on Indian territory, it does not treat Custer's personal interest in gold mining.As I previously observed, I think "Custer of the West" is worth seeing in spite of the Last Stand's being poorly done. It would be most interesting for people who know some of the history surrounding Custer's post–Civil War life and the conflicts with the Plains Indians leading up to the Last Stand.

Neil Doyle Handsome but dull western (courtesy of Spanish landscapes) to depict Custer on a mission to steal land from the Indians. A blond ROBERT SHAW looks convincing enough on horseback but something about his accent seems wrong and charisma is lacking. The Indians look more European than like American Indians and too many of the action scenes are slow paced and repetitive as Custer and his men go on various missions.MARY URE as his wife, Libby, has little to do but register impatience with being kept in the background between battles with long waits before she shares the screen with real-life hubby, ROBERT SHAW. A more mature looking JEFFREY HUNTER (sporting gray hairs) is Will Benteen, one of Custer's more loyal officers.The mountainous plains in Spain are no substitute for our standard glimpses of John Ford territory with not a single shot looking as though photographed in the American West. But it's the dull storyline that defeats the movie from ever becoming anything more than a series of handsomely photographed outdoor sequences. A surprise Indian attack by the Cheyennes on an Indepdence Day Celebration is one of the more colorful moments and triggers Custer's determination to fight the redskins, no matter that they greatly outnumber his men.Nothing in Shaw's performance suggests the color and vigor of Custer's bigger than life personality nor does the screenplay do any real justice to the man or the myth. As storytelling goes, the first half of the film manages to be just plain dull and the film only picks up speed as it nears the climactic fight at Little Big Horn.Battle skirmishes with Indians are, on the whole, well staged and full of furious gunsmoke and flying arrows--but the big set piece is saved, of course, for the finale which comes too late to save the first half of the film from the doldrums. One is left with the impression that some inventive fictionalizing would have helped (as it did with THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON).Summing up: A very miscast Shaw plays Custer as a snarling villain who barks orders and the story has a plodding script. Could have been much more impressive if filmed in the U.S. on more realistic locales with more accurate casting. A cameo by ROBERT RYAN is no help at all.