There are these bad guys in 1870s Texas, see, led by the wealthy Paul Kelly and the underhanded Victor Francen from New Orleans. What they and their henchmen have been doing is rustling cattle by the horde, or by the herd, whichever you prefer. Then they run the stolen cattle across the Mexican border, rebrand them, and filter them back into the states to sell at a profit. Many honest ranchers and small cattlemen get shot up in the process.Errol Flynn was one of them, his ranch destroyed, his cattle driven off, and he himself shot full of holes. A friend, John Litel, seeks him out in his Hollywood-style Mexican village where he finds Flynn now completely recovered and in possession of a ledger that proves Kelly's guilt. Also, need it be pointed out, Flynn is as gay and cheerful as ever. Flynn and Litel now set out for Texas to see to it that Kelly and Francen pay their debt to society.The rest of the plot gets complicated. Alexis Smith, gorgeous in Technicolor, enters the picture along with S. Z. ("Cuddles") Sakall. The first is beautiful, the latter is less funny than silly, though the tastes of contemporary audiences may be responsible for that impression.Poor Litel is shot unawares by Francen. It does not come as a surprise. We know as soon as we meet his character that he is dead meat. The smoothly groomed miscreants steal the ledger or the diary or the MacGuffin or whatever it is -- the evidence. Flynn has to do a bit of shooting to get it back. He gets it back. The bad guys die. The rest of the good guys live.It's not a demanding film. It goes down like a double café latte mit Schlag. None of the characters is in the least ambiguous. We never feel sorry for a moment when the bad guys get it. And the good guys have no qualifying quirks. They're all good-natured heterosexuals. I kept wishing for some surprise -- maybe Flynn could open his closet and a copy of Pepys' diary would tumble out with all the ribald passages underlined. Anything.But, as it stands, the movie, though a bit slow, is enjoyable. The whole Warners factory was at work here. All the expected supporting players are present. The score is by Warners stalwart Max Steiner. How he could write so MANY scores for so MANY movies of different genres is a mystery. Flynn is fine as his usual casual self. He's casual even in action scenes. In the 1937 "The Adventures of Robin Hood," he interrupted a sword fight with the menacing Basil Rathbone to wisecrack. "Did I upset your plans?" Here, he faces down gunman Tom Tyler. They both draw and shoot, and Flynn asks wryly, "Something wrong, McClaine?" Tyler, by the way, then does a reprise of his pre-mortem performance in "Stagecoach." He drops one of his guns, turns and begins to walk slowly away, drops the other gun, takes a few more steps and drops dead.The superb photography is by Bert Glennon. Alexis Smith is merely decorative, but she IS decorative. S. Z. Sakall, a Hungarian, mangles the syntax of the English language and slaps his blubbery cheeks with his palms when he's frightened, which is most of the time, but his role is perhaps more dramatic than his persona can handle. I genuinely enjoyed the wardrobe and the art direction. San Antonio really looks glamorously Mexican. And the director has Victor Franken at varying times chewing on a tamale and what appears to be a soft taco. I've often wondered, though, about the livelihood of characters like Flynn's. He rode into Mexico wounded and without a centavo. He returns to Texas to correct the situation -- but he NEVER WORKS. He has multiple Western outfits, can afford to eat in what passes for fancy restaurants, carelessly tips a tiny Mexican messenger boy -- but he NEVER WORKS. Whatever his source of income is, that's the one I want.Flynn didn't have much of a career ahead of him after this movie but you'd never know it by watching him romp through this retrograde nonsense with such zest.

"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.)

Unlike some of the other comments above, I will give this movie great marks for plot, main actors, character actors, story line, suspense, technical proficiency of the director and beauty of the scenery and sets. Admittedly, maybe not Errol Flynn's best, but nothing to be ashamed of either. I saw other comments that Alexis Smith dubbed her singing, don't know how that was known, but my opinion is that this was her own work. You never lose interest from start to finish. The colors in this Technicolor feature are the best I've ever seen of the time period. Great movie. I have it on VHS, would like to get it on DVD but it seems to have disappeared from the marketplace.

"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.