Santee (1973)

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

A bounty hunter (Glenn Ford) takes in the son (Michael Burns) of a man he killed.I have never been a huge fan of the western genre. Some are incredible, but most seem to be rather blah. One could say that about any genre, I suppose. I mean, heck, I love horror and I would be the first to admit that most of it is garbage. But it is garbage that still generally entertains me. The western, for the most part, is not something I understand.This one is alright. Adopting a kid (who is really more of a young adult) in the west is a good story, and Glenn Ford is a decent actor. As far as the genre goes, this is very much middle ground.

"Santee" is a decent enough film, but it's "Jody" song that comes and goes throughout the movie is reason enough to deduct a point!The film begins with a really BAD family reunion. Jody, a 19 year- old guy, comes upon his father and three of his 'friends'. It seems that Jody barely knows his dad and was raised by his divorced mother. Well, wouldn't you know that the father and his men are on the run from the law! Soon, a bounty hunter, Santee (Glenn Ford), shows and quickly dispatches the guilty four men--leaving Jody a bit shocked to say the least! Jody is angry enough at Santee to kill...but inexplicably, Santee is nice to him and realizes he was not involved with his father's gang and their crimes. What follows is a bonding between Jody and Santee, as Santee takes him home with him and treats him decently. All this bromance, however, is short- lived, as the men who wronged Santee so long ago and set him on a life as a bounty hunter arrive in town--and they are really bad dudes!The film has a rather original plot and I enjoyed it. But 1970s god-awful music took away, somewhat, from my enjoyment. Still, despite this, it's worth your time. Plus, you get to see Jay Silverheels in a role much more interesting than playing Tonto to the Lone Ranger.

Western films were somewhat on the wane when this one was released and, while it isn't without some merits, it tends to be a pretty routine affair. An early attempt at videography versus film results in a cheap-looking product that ranges from perfectly acceptable to downright awful. Ford plays a bounty hunter who leaves his thriving spread periodically to track down outlaws and bring them to justice (or to the grave!) Driven by a shattering incident in his past, he feels an obligation to do away with as many cretins as he can. One day, after doing in a wanted man, he takes the son (Burns) into his custody, though the son has made it clear that he will one day exact revenge on Ford for the killing. As the pair begin to forge a tenuous relationship, aided by the soothing presence of Ford's wife Wynter and their ranch hand Silverheels, an outlaw gang rides into town threatening to wreck everyone's lives. Ford gives a solid performance here, his own advancing age adding to the weariness of the character. Burns is also decent. Their relationship is never as deeply delineated as one would like, though they share a certain amount of rapport. Wynter makes the most of her negligible scenes. Carelessly costumed in a variety of dull, mismatched pieces, she, thanks to the unusual filming method, sometimes looks wonderful and then other times looks a bit haggard. Silverheels delivers his lines with a sense of the stoic, iconic character of Tonto that he was famous for, but at least gets to display a certain amount of animation and emotion besides. Townes turns in a good performance as the town sheriff who inherited the job from Ford. Thankfully, the bulk of the film is shot outdoors in the daytime and those scenes are generally good-looking. Sadly, most of the indoor scenes are murky and anything done at night is beyond horrible. Despite the healthy amount of bloodletting, this has an old-fashioned feel to it. The potential was there for a reflective, enthralling western, but the often-shoddy camera-work and the undercooked script rob it of that chance. Still, fans of Ford ought to enjoy seeing him in one of his last big roles while fans of the genre should find enough action in it to hold interest.

Glenn Ford who was associated with some of the best westerns ever made has his last starring role in the genre in Santee. Although he would do more westerns up to almost the end of his career, he would no longer be the leading man/action hero in any of them.Ford was 57 when he made Santee and even in this one he's transitioning to be a father figure, much the same way John Wayne was in films like Big Jake, Rio Lobo, and The Cowboys. Unfortunately Santee takes it's plot from a combination of Henry Fonda's The Tin Star and Robert Mitchum's Young Billy Young. Ford is a former lawman, turned bounty hunter who decides that marshaling doesn't give him quite the latitude he needs to deal with bad guys. It also doesn't pay as well. But having his son shot down by John Larch and his gang was enough to turn him bitter.He's also forced to kill Robert J. Wilkie another outlaw who has a son in Michael Burns. But he takes Burns into his home. Truth be told there wasn't much attachment there anyway, Burns hardly knew him.Jay Silverheels has the best part in the film as Ford's loquacious ranch foreman. I do believe he had more dialog here than in over 200 episodes of The Lone Ranger. Dana Wynter has a few scenes as Ford's wife and makes them count.But Santee is just a tired rehash of a pair of better films. Glenn Ford fans will like it though.