"Here is a picture of real epic proportions and as stirring a production as the screen has offered. There is no phase of it which is not worthy of the highest praise - production, direction, performance, writing photography and all else that went into its making."
With Errol Flynn as its romantic hero and Ronald Regan as his friend and rival in love, the film takes the notable sextet of West Point's famous class of 1854 to their first assignment in Kansas, that of tracking down John Brown and his zealot followers. It carries them through violent clashes to the routing of Brown's first army at Palmyra, then goes on to the final denouement of the sensational affair at Harper's ferry in 1859 when Brown struck the spark which hastened the civil war. Through it all is a thread of personal drama and romance, the whole knit together beautifully with never a lagging moment.