Les rebelles de San Antone

The 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.

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.

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.

Confederate army officer Brian Culver comes to propose marriage to Julia Allerby, but she is distracted by Chino Figueroa's plans to leave her ranch. She tries to persuade Chino to keep working for her, first by seducing him, which fails, then by false accusations that he attacked her.

Culver is angry enough when civilian Carl Miller turns up with a troop movement that he, Miller, will lead. Carl is a friend of Chino's and in love with Chino's sister, Mistania. As usual, Julia intervenes and attempts to use her wiles on Carl, then becomes furious when he slaps her face.

Riding through a canyon where he expects Culver's soldiers to be attacked, Carl and the soldiers are deserted by Culver and end up captured. By the time Carl is released and returns to San Antonio, Chino has taken some of Culver's men hostage while others have taken jobs with wealthy rancher John Chisum.

Carl discovers that Culver murdered his father and is on the hunt for him ...

San Antone is more like a soap opera than a shoot 'em up and it's quite episodic, slow moving at times but it has some interesting ideas, especially of the history, and Arleen Whelan steals the scene as the selfish and scheming Southern belle who jumps to one man to the next like ants jump in the pants! She's really an interesting character and adds meat to the story. She fancied Cameron but he doesn't want her. There's not much action, just a short conflict between the injuns. It's overall a talky and passable western. It's well acted by all and has a certain depth in the characterisation, however it's not too riveting. The scheming Julia, the love rivalry is the real focus, which can drag.

After 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.