Santa Fe Trail (film)

1940 film

Raymond Massey signed to play John Brown in June. John Wayne was mentioned as a possibility for Flynn's costar. Dennis Morgan was announced for the role of George Custer. Morgan was borrowed to appear in Kitty Foyle and replaced by Ronald Reagan before filming began. Van Heflin was signed to play the villain following his success on Broadway in The Philadelphia Story; it was his first movie since 1937.

In June 1940, Warner Bros. announced the film as part of its slate. It was one of five films the studio announced for Flynn, the others being The Constant Nymph, Captain Horatio Hornblower, Shanghai, and Jupiter Laughs. Filming started in July 1940, delayed by a recurrence of Flynn's malaria. Outdoor scenes were filmed at the Lasky Movie Ranch in the Lasky Mesa area of the Simi Hills in the western San Fernando Valley, California. The railroad scenes were filmed on the Sierra Railroad in Tuolumne County, California.

The film was premiered in Santa Fe over a three day festival, featuring a large number of celebrities, including Flynn, De Havilland, Rudy Vallée and Wayne Morris. Rita Hayworth performed a "welcome dance". There were 250 guests and two special trains, one from Hollywood and one from the East, for a total cost of $50,000 — shared between Warners and Santa Fe Railroad De Havilland was stricken with appendicitis during the trip and had to be flown home.

In its initial release, Warner Brothers premiered this film in some large cities with an experimental sound system named Vitasound, not stereophonic but aiming to create a greater dynamic sound range for battlefield action and dramatic music.

According to Warner Bros records, the film made a profit of $1.48 million. It made $1,748,000 domestically and $785,000 foreign.

Santa Fe Trail entered the public domain in 1968 when United Artists Television (then the owners of the pre 1950 WB library, inherited from Associated Artists Productions) did not renew the copyright. As a result, the film later became widely available on VHS, LaserDisc and DVD as well as freely available for internet downloading. In 1988, a colorized version was produced by Color Systems Technology for Hal Roach Studios, and released on VHS (VidAmerica, 1990). Turner Entertainment released a higher quality VHS than was previously available (MGM/UA Home Video, 1998). Turner's ownership is part of the television division of Warner Bros., the original distributor. Although not fully restored, higher quality editions have been released in Germany on DVD (Intergroove, 2011) and Blu ray (WME Home Entertainment, 2017).