Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

One of my all time favorites.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"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.

Arleen Whelan (Julia) deserves credit for playing one of the meanest women on screen. If we consider westerns, Veronica Lake in "Ramrod" and Barbara Stanwick in "The Violent Men", were quite mean but they don't come close to Arleen in this film. It is interesting that Arleen played the good girl in "Ramrod". The film starts at the beginning of the civil war when both Forrest Tucker and Cameron join the Confederates. They hate each other, one of the reasons being that Arleen would choose Cameron over Tucker, to whom she is engaged but Cameron knows from the past how bad she is and rejects her. There is also Rodolfo Acosta ( Chino), who is almost killed because of Julia and becomes a Mexican guerrilla leader on the side of Juarez. Chino's sister (Katy Jurado) and Cameron love each other. The cowboys, resting during the cattle drive sing "Streets of Laredo", enjoyable scene. The point of view at the ending of the film made me think of "The Gunfighter". Rod Cameron's westerns (Panhandle, Ride the Man Down and this one) were above average, they sure delivered action and adventure.

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.

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.