TinsHeadline Touches You

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

JohnHowardReid I love this movie. Contemporary reviews were luke-warm at best, but it has everything I like about the classic big-scale western. First of all, it's most lavishly produced- which no-one can deny, despite the use of a few stock shots under the opening narration. Secondly, it stars Errol Flynn at his cavalier best. Few other heroes can stand up to the villain with quite the tongue-in-cheek bravado, the calculated insouciance, the devil-may-care yet firmly right-thinking charm that Flynn always seems to project with such consummate ease and artistry. Thirdly, our boy is almost evenly matched by a first-rate pair of truly hard-hearted villains: Victor Francen, all purring viciousness; and Paul Kelly, the master of cowardly opportunism. Fourthly - and it's downright boorish of me to place her so far down the pecking order - is the radiant Alexis Smith, whose sweeping presence, gorgeous costumes and sparkling performance will keep even the most misogynist western fan happy. We could go on from here to list the virtues of all the support cast, but space prevents all but three. It would be churlish indeed to pass over the delightful Florence Bates. S.Z. Sakall is equally winning in a more dramatic role than usual. Last but by no means least, Tom Tyler. Tom always seemed a bit uncomfortable as Captain Marvel. It's great to see him back on firmer ground as the snarlingest, meanest-faced bushwacker this side of the Rio Grande.Another thing I really like about San Antonio is the way it's directed. One of the big differences between English and American films is that the vast majority of English directors are competent but frightfully dull, whereas their Hollywood colleagues tend to be much more daring and adventurous. San Antonio is an excellent example of the Hollywood willingness to push the medium to its limits. What does it matter if some of the angles don't match when the film is directed with such gusto and vitality? The director never loses an opportunity to take full advantage of the film's lavish budget. The camera glides through jostling crowds, pulls back from the stage of the cavernously ornate Bella Union, and frames some eye-catching vistas of both real locations and Hollywood sets. (Raoul Walsh is reported to have made a "substantial contribution" to the film, but which scenes are his are impossible to identify). The script has been widely condemned as routine and derivative. Both these observations are misleading. True, the basic bedrock plot is predictable, but most moviegoers - including me - would be very upset if the hero didn't thwart the villains and get the girl. Aside from this important premise, however, there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns. What's more, the script takes in some really interesting characters, not the least of which are Alexis Smith's unusually spirited heroine and Victor Francen's memorably double-dealing bad guy. Furthermore, the no-expense-spared budget has allowed the screenwriters plenty of scope for enough extravagantly staged action and breathtaking stunts to enliven at least three or four normal-sized movies. Technical credits are superb. Max Steiner's rousing score, Bert Glennon's atmospheric photography and Milo Anderson's gorgeous costumes deserve special applause. Ted Smith and Jack McConaghy were nominated for an Academy Award in the Color Art direction category (losing to Frenchman's Creek), while "Some Sunday Morning" was nominated for Best Song (losing to "It Might As Well Be Spring" from State Fair). OTHER VIEWS: Fascinating! What happened was that both Flynn and Smith took ill in the middle of shooting. And when she recovered, Smith was not available for San Antonio anyway, but was required back on the set of The Horn Blows At Midnight. As a result, the direction of San Antonio is to say the least peculiar. The movie is a patchwork quilt of the great and the mediocre, the inventively expedient and the downright banal. Producer Buckner doubtless took a hand in trying to doctor the script around his ailing stars.

weezeralfalfa Hero Clay Hardin's(Errol Flynn) first and last scenes with gorgeous stage entertainer Jeanne Starr(Alexis Smith) involve him climbing through the window of a traveling stagecoach, after transferring from his horse. They thus serve as a sort of running gag. The first of these episodes serves as the equivalent of Flynn's swinging down on a vine from a tree perch to surprise a royal outing through Sherwood Forest, in "The Adventures of Robin Hood". Hardin then proceeds to convince the neophyte passengers that he is an asset in protecting them from a locally notorious badman named Clay Hardin. Typical Flynn shenanigans! Also in this stage are Jeanne's companions Sacha Bozic(the immimical "Cuddles" Sakall), who serves as her manager and orchestra conductor, and Henrietta(Florence Bates), who is like her mother. They have been contracted to provide entertainment at the Bella Union saloon, in San Antonio. I enjoyed this film, for the most part. In fact, it's one of my favorite westerns, that seems to get better with each viewing, mostly on Encore Westerns, at present. Also, available on DVD as part of Flynn's (incomplete) westerns collection. Alexis is superb as a feisty classy entertainer and woman, although her singing was dubbed. The music is first rate for a western. The presence of 3 very different European or Australian -bred actors, all quite charismatic, helps distinguish this western from others.The story is mainly about a war in south Texas between cattle ranchers and a huge rustler conglomerate headed by one Roy Stuart, who also owns the main San Antonio saloon:Bella Union. Many ranchers, including Hardin, have been ruined and sometimes killed by this cartel. Thus, Hardin has been hiding out in Mexican Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Texan Laredo. He has killed one of Stuart's henchmen sent to finish him off and apparently to drive stolen cattle across into Mexico. Serendipitiously,from this body, Harden recovered a notebook describing in detail the recent rustling activities of this cartel, thus providing the possible basis for legal proceedings against it. Longtime friend Charlie Bell(John Litel) joins Hardin as they cross the Rio Grande into Texan Laredo, where they kill two of Stuart's men sent to kill them. On to San Antonio, where Hardin makes a surprise appearance, having been reported as dead.Hardin weighs his options of trying to jail the kingpins via legal proceedings, motivating the US cavalry to suppress the gangs, or organizing the remaining ranchers into vigilante action. Meanwhile, Bell is murdered by Stuart's saloon manager, Legare, who recovers the incriminating notebook, but whose complicity in the murder is not immediately apparent, even to Stuart.The army cavalry is forced to bow out. Thus, Hardin decides that a showdown between an aggregation of ranchers and rustlers is his best option. This occurs at the Bella Union, where a massive brawl and shootout between the groups occurs, essentially destroying Stuart's establishment.Stuart and Legare escape into the adjacent Alamo ruins, followed by Hardin. It's a 3-way gun battle in the dark, as Stuart and Legare actually detest each other. It's not over yet, as an obligatory horse chase and fist fight follow. Now, Hardin just has to convince his fleeing lady love to return to start a new life. It didn't take much convincing. The interspersed 'action' sequences, involving shootouts, murders, brawls and fistfights, I thought were generally among the least interesting features of the film, although I appreciate that many viewers expect these in a western. At 35, Flynn still looked good, and is in top form in the various facets of his personality. Just prior to the big saloon brawl, he walks menacingly in front of the lineup of opposition, then kicks the backwards-leaning chair from under one, sending him sprawling. This is the defiant equivalent of throwing that deer carcass down in front of Prince John, as Robin Hood.This is one of 4 films in which Alexis costarred with Flynn. With her flaming hair, gray-green eyes, and often spectacular outfits, she was made for Technicolor, which we enjoy in this film and the later, much shorter, "Montana" western. Sakall also returned for the latter film, although he disappears half way through it. Already a practiced actor in his native Hungary, Sakall appeared as a distinctive emotional English-mangling senior character actor in many films in the '40s and early '50s, including many lesser known musicals. Along with Carmen Miranda and Desi Arnes, for example, his thick imperfect(to say the least) English was presented as cute, although some viewers find him irritating.Veteran actor Paul Kelly makes a cold, creepy, rock-jawed mostly silent, villain, in contrast to his urbane partner/nemesis: Victor Francen, as Legare. Their 'reluctant buddy' relationship I think quite interesting. Music-wise, the new "Some Sunday Morning" rightly dominates. It's about anticipating a marriage ceremony. Alexis does it nicely on stage, appropriately followed by a male quartet echo. Later she does "Somewhere in Monterey" on stage, interrupted by the big brawl. I also enjoyed the "Mexican Hat Dance" and, in the background, the classic romantic standard "La Golandrina".Hardin might have been loosely modeled on Albert Fountain, who headed a successful concerted effort by a volunteer militia to clean up NM's chronic rustling problem, after the skeletal territorial judicial system and the army cavalry proved inadequate or unwilling to solve the problem.

Terrell-4 "You mean to tell me this little mud Indian village is San Antonio?" says the singer, Jeanne Starr (Alexis Smith), as her stagecoach swings into the plaza. "Oh, it's nice! You will like it!" bubbles her manager, Sacha Bozic (S. Z. Sakall). "As far as I'm concerned it's just another place full of wild savages." She's already met Clay Hardin (Errol Flynn), so we know the town can't be that bad. On the other hand, she has yet to encounter the movie's two murderous villains, Roy Stuart (Paul Kelly) and the smooth Legare (Victor Francen). San Antonio is better than a routine western, but still not much more than a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half. It's the story of Clay Hardin and his determination to bring to justice the king pin of a ruthless rustling operation. Cattle are stolen, run across the Rio Grande to Mexico, resold in a sham scheme to obtain false documents, then brought back across and resold for big profits. Hardin, beaten and run off once, is determined to come back to San Antonio with the evidence he now has...a tally book of the cattle sales in Mexico, with names, dates, brands and prices. On his way back he has to deal with killers sent to stop him, a stage coach that carries Jeanne Starr on her way to an engagement at the Bella Union Music Hall in San Antonio, and, when the stage arrives, a face-to-face encounter with the tough Roy Stuart himself, the man behind it all. And not just Stuart. His partner is the smiling and unscrupulous Legare. We're in for shoot outs, back shots, bad odds and Alexis Smith singing a couple of songs. The movie has solid production values, a creepy night-time shoot out in the ruins of the Alamo and one of the most entertaining, over-the-top shoot 'em ups, set in the Bella Union, I've ever seen. Men take bullets too fast to count, then bounce off the bar or grab their chests and fall to the floor. Mirrors shatter, a large, full bar quickly and loudly explodes into glass shards and, in a rococo moment, one villain in a balcony next to the stage is shot, tips over, gets his legs twisted in the curtain ropes and swings and twitches back and forth for a while. Eventually, justice is done in a workmanlike way. We hear the praises of Texas and, in a nice echo of Hardin's and Jeanne's first meeting in a stagecoach, another stagecoach turns around to head back to San Antonio. For me, the real pleasure was watching two notable actors, Victor Francen and Paul Kelly. Francen was a Belgian who came to America in 1939. He played men who were suave to their fingertips, worldly in outlook and perfectly at home at the roulette table. He always had a gracious smile while he said the most threatening things and did the most deadly deeds. You'll recognize him when you see him. Paul Kelly, on the other hand, was made of rougher material. He once served time for beating a man to death. Kelly also was a fine actor when given a chance. On Broadway, he won the Tony for lead actor when he starred in Command Decision. Naturally enough, when Hollywood made Command Decision into a movie Kelly's role was given to Clark Gable. If you want a sample of outstanding acting so bizarre it's memorable, just watch the scenes Kelly shares with Gloria Grahame in Crossfire. As for Errol Flynn, he does the kind of job only a charismatic movie star can deliver. Few were better when it came to smiling at danger or laughing at death. Flynn seemed at his best in costumes in his youth, uniforms during WWII and, in my opinion, in well-cut business suits afterwards. After the mid-Forties, costumes, whether cowboy outfits or tight breeches, just didn't seem to do much for the increasingly tired visage or for the notoriety he created. (Kim is the exception.) A suit and a tie, however, were another matter. The movies he made in civilian gear often weren't very good, but he seemed to keep some of his old charisma as well as to be challenged to actually act. That Forsyte Woman is as careful and respectful as an arthritic butler but Flynn as Soames Forsyte does a fine job. In Cry Wolf opposite Barbara Stanwyck, I think he does a superior job in this under-rated old-dark-house movie. (You can watch both occasionally on cable.)

jotix100 "San Antonio", directed by David Butler must have been a vehicle for the handsome, and debonair Errol Flynn, who could do nothing wrong during that period of his career. Warner Bros. went all out to make this film that has a little bit of everything to please the fans of the Western genre.The surprise of the film was Alexis Smith, who was at the height of her beauty at the time. She makes a wonderful Jeanne Starr, an entertainer, who is the center of attraction among the men one sees in the film. Not only was she a gorgeous woman who blended well with her screen partners, in this case with Mr. Flynn.The supporting cast does good work under Mr. Butler's direction. The adorable S. Z. Sakall is wonderful as the conductor of the orchestra in the saloon where Jeanne plays. Also, Glorence Bates, an accomplished character actress appears as Jeanne's maid, Henrietta. Also in heavier roles Victor Francen and Paul Kelly do wonders with their evil roles."San Antonio" has kept its wonderful colors. Max Steiner's musical score also helps the action.