Captain From Castile in DVD

As a "baby boomer" I can attest that I was not "forced" to watch "Captain from Castille" or any other movies from the 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s. When I was a kid local tv stations showed older movies all afternoon and late at night, and watching them was just a normal daily activity.

Hello...

It's a movie not a documentary on actual historical facts. It's based on a book that was written in the 40's.

There is always The History Channel, PBS and TLC for you and those who do not want to escape in a good movie.

Actually, Cortez didn't burn his ships. He scuttled them, and took many of the components-anchors, chains, rope and even nails--for use in building a fort at his settlement of Vera Cruz. A second reason he did so was to conscript the sailors to add to his army of soldiers. Bernal Diaz' eyewitness "True History of the Conquest of New Spain" adds that Cortez' own captains and supporters advised him to do this to prevent the friends of Cuba's Governor Velasquez from returning to Cuba to undermine Cortez' authority.

One ship he preserved and used it to send back to the King of Spain with a portion of the gold that had been paid as tribute from some of the coastal tribes he had conquered, as well as some bribes given by Moctezuma's ambassadors in the vain hope the Spaniards could be bought off and return to whence they had come. This return of this treasure--known as the "Royal Fifth"--to Spain was part of Cortez' attempt to gain a foothold with the Crown and overcome the attempts by the Governor of Cuba, who had originally funded the expedition, to have Cortez recalled. The return of the ship with this gold strengthened Cortez' position, if only for the time he needed to complete the conquest of Tenochtitlan, and also made it possible for us today to see some of the very few surviving artifacts from the Mexico of pre-Conquest times and get an idea of the immense influence such treasure had on the Europeans by stimulating the exploration boom of the 16th century.

I have to disagree with the poster who dismisses this film as a piece of junk. That's like saying Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" is a piece of junk because it doesn't correspond with the accepted historical sources (nor even with Plutarch's own prejudiced account of the story, from which Shakespeare cribbed much of the plot and even some of the dialogue). The historical context of the film is quite acceptable, and even more importantly, the picture it portrays of the Spanish adventurers, who suddenly saw a limitless new world of possibility open to them after the inward-looking and stagnant Middle Ages, is better and truer history than a mere slavish adherence to "facts."

Sorry for the 6 year delay on response to your question! I bought it through Amazon. I watch it once or twice a year.