Republic's entry is a middling programmer about a personal grudge between a Union sympathizer and a Confederate lieutenant during the American Civil War and Juarez' struggle against Maximillian and the French in Mexico. Rod Cameron and Forrest Tucker are the main adversaries in this western that wastes a very good cast. The film's plot, an obscure historical footnote, is hard to follow and the cattle drives lifted from other westerns give the picture a choppy, unbalanced look. Arleen Whelan and Katy Jurado are very good, especially Whelan as a scheming, flighty and amoral woman. Jurado is smitten with Cameron but the smoldering embers between them somehow seem warmed over because he doesn't appear to be her type. The action is okay but spotty, with the principals mainly battling thirst, Indians and each other. Harry Carey Jr, Bob Steele and Rudy Acosta are solid and do what they can with the material at hand.
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NewEnglandPat6 August 2003
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aimless-4622 September 2006The premise of "San Antone" revolves around an interesting footnote to the American Civil War. At the end of the war Confederate General Shelby was operating in the Trans- Mississippi area and rather than surrender he led about 200 of his remaining men into Mexico with the intention of becoming mercenaries in Mexico's own civil war; between elected President Juarez and the European puppet Maximilian. Shelby wanted to support Juarez but his men (hard line Southerners) identified more with the aristocratic Emperor Maximilian. Shelby went along with their wishes and met with Maximilian. But Mexico was already flooded with European mercenaries and Maximilian could not afford to employ the former Confederate soldiers.
The basic premise would be repeated again in "The Undefeated" (1969) and "The Shadow Riders (1982). Those two movies take even more liberties with history than "San Antone", which is by far the best of the three if only because its background story is far more plausible that the distorted mess invented for the later movies.
"San Antone" is not really the story of General Shelby but of a small group of soldiers (and their rescuers) from outside his command who enter Mexico with the intention of joining him. They are captured by a band of Juarez's Republicans and held for ransom.
This film belongs to the women as Arleen Whelan and Katy Jurado pretty much steal the whole thing from wooden star Rod Cameron and his movie nemesis Forrest Tucker. In fact, had the producers recognized the great dynamic they had going here and revised the script to feature it instead of the lame action sequences they would have ended up with a decent film. Unfortunately they remained clueless and the two substantial but still supporting actress roles are not enough to salvage the production.
Interestingly, both Whelan and Jurado play totally against their physical casting types (wholesome redheaded Irish girl and haughty aristocratic Spaniard) and these physical disconnects bring unexpected depth to their characters. Whelan has a lot of fun as Julia Allerby, channeling the nastiest traits of Bette Davis' "Jezebel" and Vivian Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara.
Cameron might be the feature performer but Whelan is not far behind him in screen time. In large part this is due to this being a modest budget Columbia production. There was no money for elaborate action scenes so Columbia substituted a lot of stock footage instead. The film stock is poorly matched with the original footage and of course Cameron is not present in any of these assorted sequences. They include a lengthy civil war montage from a 1930's educational film-complete with a voice-over of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (it suddenly appears-you watch until it goes away-you wonder why they put that in there). A bit later a badly staged Alamo sequence (probably for the same high school civics class) is inserted to represent Maximilian's attack on Monterey (an engagement that actually occurred many years earlier during the Mexican War and did not involve Maximilian).
There is also a lot of miscellaneous stock footage of cattle drives. The only major action scene actually staged for "San Antone" is cinema's all time most moronic Indian attack. Rather than simply overrun the cattlemen the Indians ride up and down in front of them like shooting gallery targets. Maybe that stock footage wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child. -
Probably considered epic, by Republic Studios proportions, this is the story of a Texas cattleman(Cameron)who travels to Mexico to settle the score with the Confederate officer(Tucker)that double crossed him. A good supporting cast, and some lively cowboy tunes make this a much more pleasurable journey than the tired plot would allow.
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helpless_dancer22 March 2000After the Civil War, a group of cowboys take a herd of cattle to Mexico in exchange for 50 prisoners. They must battle heat, lack of water, each other, and a tribe of ornery, warlike redskins to reach their destination. Good shoot-em-up.
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bsmith555222 September 2013"San Antone" is essentially a cattle drive western from Republic Pictures and Director Joe Kane.
The story takes place during and following the American Civil War. At the outbreak of the war, cattleman Carl Miller (Rod Cameron) takes command of a cattle drive intended to feed the Confederate soldiers. However, The drive is ambushed by the Union and Miller and his wranglers (Bob Steele, Harry Carey Jr. and James Lilburn) are imprisoned. You've gotta see the four with long scraggly beards but with normal length hair while in the prison.
After the war, Miller takes on a cattle drive from Texas to Mexico. The cattle form the ransom demanded by Mexican revolutionary Chino (Rodolfo Acosta) to free 50 ex-rebel soldiers, one of which is Brian Cutler (Forrest Tucker) with whom Miller has a past.
Along for the drive are former Southern Belle Julia Allenby (Arlene Whelan) a scheming seductress who has designs on Miller. Miller on the other hand is in love with the fiery Mistania (Katy Jurado) the sister of Chino.
Director Kane gives us plenty of action in the form of Civil War and French/Mexican battle scenes (most of which are likely stock footage) and a rousing battle with the Apache. There's a knife fight between the two female stars as well as one between Cameron and Tucker.
Curiously, there's no real villain in the picture. Tucker appears at the beginning and end but is off screen for the middle two thirds of the story. The whole cattle drive centers on Cameron trying to get to Tucker even though he is absent from the screen.
It's worth the price of admission just to see and hear Steele of all people, along with Carey and Lilburn singing to the cattle and around the camp fire.
Others in the cast include Richard Hale as Abraham Lincoln, Roy Roberts as John Chisum, George Cleveland as Whelan's father and Douglas Kennedy as a Union Lieutenant.
Not the best western from Republic but a competent and entertaining 90 minutes nonetheless. -
bkoganbing26 July 2015Rod Cameron has a pair of leading ladies in San Antone, a post Civil War western whose characters have their motivations dating from the years prior to the Civil War. There's Katy Jurado who is sister to Rudolfo Acosta who usually is a villain in westerns. He's not in this case, he's a Mexican peon who gets good and teased by vixen Arleen Whelan and has to be saved by Cameron whom Acosta now owes big time.
Forrest Tucker plays a Confederate cavalry officer who murders Cameron's father who was trying to stay out of Civil War politics. That's someone else Cameron owes.
So when he hears that Tucker is being held by Acosta in Mexico who is now a Juarista chief what does Cameron do. He decides to pay the ransom of cattle demanded by the Juaristas, but save Tucker for his own pleasure.
Best part of this film is Arleen Whelan who plays a southern belle vixen who makes Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind and Bette Davis in Jezebel look like convent girls. Too bad her character was not in a better film.
San Antone is a kind of disjointed film off the Republic Pictures assembly line and everyone here has done better work. Except for Whelan, she is "Cherce".