Classic Rewind: The Plainsman (1937)

Unapologetically chimerical and about as authentic as a Gary Cooper air-punch, The Plainsman ('37), beginning with a shot of the pinned-on beard of Abraham Lincoln, is the kind of all-encompassing, shamelessly romanticized vision that could only be cooked up by Cecil B. DeMille, the master showman himself.
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Combining history, myth, and good old jingoistic western sentiment, The Plainsman is a contradiction in motivations - an epic, sweeping dime novel, hastily pitting historical figures like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane against the savage, embarrassingly stereotypical Native Americans, who squawk and howl and become distracted by pretty hats.  
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DeMille, who was at this point highly susceptible and everlastingly concerned about his commercial status, (once a highly artistic silent-film director booted to the streets) brings a charming, nonthreatening quality to all of his work and has never met a story he couldn't project onto the largest canvas possible. (Both of his "epic westerns" begin with a dutiful delegation in Washington.)
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Two years later, with Union Pacific ('39), a similar story of post-war westward expansion, DeMille would slightly hone in his childish, idealized vision of the open plains, although both are ultimately too nationalistic and too enchanting to compare with the tougher, morally ambiguous and revisionist westerns that would come soon after. [C]