bkoganbing Rod 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".

NewEnglandPat 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.

helpless_dancer 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.

bux 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.