Wed 10 Jun 2015
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: SANTEE (1973).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[6] Comments
SANTEE. Crown International, 1973. Glenn Ford, Michael Burns, Dana Wynter, Jay Silverheels, Harry Townes, John Larch. Director: Gary Nelson.
What do you get if you cross a Disney coming of age story with a Spaghetti Western revenge story and a 1970s video aesthetic?
Santee, that’s what. One of the first American movies to be shot entirely on video, this quixotic movie features Glenn Ford as Santee, a bounty hunter who has never quite gotten over the death of his son at the hands of outlaws.
But then he meets young Jody Deakes (Michael Burns) and takes the teenage orphan under his wing. Did I mention that Deakes is an orphan because Santee killed his outlaw father? So, there’s some suspense as to whether Deakes is going to seek revenge against Santee, despite their budding father-son relationship. And Jay Silverhills is around too, portraying ranch hand John Crow and dispensing words of wisdom to the boy.
All told, Santee is more of an historical curiosity than anything else. It feels like a made-for-TV movie and plays as a psychological Western. There’s something very 1970s about it all, including an incredibly New Age theme song that is so horribly out of place that it actually fits. The movie ends on an extraordinarily downbeat note, washing away all the saccharine wholesomeness that has come before.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry too much.
Santee, as a film, doesn’t make all that much sense. Why was this made? Why Glenn Ford? And why on video? In the end, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it was made and that, while the 1970s gave us a lot of cheap forgettable features, it also was a time when filmmakers and big name stars had a lot more license to try bizarre things than they do today. And that’s got to count for something.
June 11th, 2015 at 3:32 am
Western buffs seem to like this one. I’m still looking to find it.
June 11th, 2015 at 11:21 am
Are you sure this is a trailer? I just see a couple of scenes that don’t make much sense.
June 11th, 2015 at 3:34 pm
Perhaps this should be labeled “a clip” rather than “trailer.”
June 11th, 2015 at 4:16 pm
Michael Burns also played an orphan when he was a regular cast member on “Wagon Train” during its last two seasons (1963-65). According to IMDb, after he left acting he found a home at Mount Holyoke College, where he taught history for 22 years.
June 11th, 2015 at 7:54 pm
Interesting background on Burns
Thanks for sharing
June 11th, 2015 at 8:05 pm
This is another of those attempts to somehow revive the 1950’s western with actual 1950’s stars and director Gene Nelson. This one tries hard, and it would have worked made in 1959 with another younger actor, but when it was made it was at best another shot at artificial respiration for the western, too little too late.
For me, it’s competent, and nice to see Ford in one more western and especially Siverheels, but it’s too late, and by this time all those in this film were no longer movie stars in the sense they were in the fifties, they were television stars. Faces we saw on television without having to go to the movies.
The problem with SANTEE is the same with others reviewed recently from this period, it has tired blood.