Santee (1973)

Too much of everything

Simply Perfect

Memorable, crazy movie

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Watching "Santee" on the Encore Western Channel wound up leaving a lot more questions than answers for me on a number of different levels. The most troublesome aspect of the story was young Jody Deakes' (Michael Burns) willing team up with Santee (Glenn Ford) following the confrontation and killing of his father. That seemed like just a little too much of a stretch from both sides of the coin. Putting myself in Jody's shoes, and even if my old man was an outlaw, I think at the very least I'd be looking to ride off and be glad I didn't catch a bullet myself. From Santee's perspective, there was always the distinct possibility that Jody could turn on him at a moment's notice, particularly after Jody made it an obvious threat.So there's that. But even before the showdown that took out the elder Deakes (Robert J. Wilke), I was left wondering how much of a bad a-- Santee could possibly be that Deakes preferred to take it on the lam rather than have his gang mount a stand against him. There was ample time and distance to set up an ambush, even if Santee could have taken out a couple of them which would have seemed likely. I don't know, the whole story didn't seem to be set on a firm foundation, and I found myself scratching my head more than once.But it was cool to see Jay Silverheels in a non-Tonto characterization as Santee's friend and hired hand. He showed a much greater range of acting ability than we ever got a chance to see as Lone Ranger's sidekick. When he got misty eyed at the thought of Santee riding off to face the Banner's, I was reminded of that memorable anti-pollution commercial of the era in which Iron Eyes Cody shed a tear for a troubled environment; seems to me that Silverheels might have been just as effective. And speaking of Silverheels/Tonto, I was intrigued by the appearance of John Hart's name in the opening credits. Though I couldn't pick him out in the picture as the character Cobbles, I was hoping to catch a glimpse of him and Silverheels in a scene together. Not many fans know that Hart appeared in a little over fifty episodes as The Lone Ranger when Clayton Moore sat out a season in a contract dispute.Another puzzling aspect of the picture had to do with the cinematography. As gorgeous and bright as the the daytime landscape scenes appeared to be, they were offset by the murky, almost muddy night time and darkened interior photography. I think a few other reviewers on this board might have offered an insight into that, as this was an early attempt to film with videotape. It wasn't enough to distract from the picture too much, but it did leave another one of those question marks.And for the biggest question mark of all - what was with that song 'Jody' ??? It sounded so out of place in a Western drama that I had trouble containing a compulsion to laugh out loud. Performed by Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders no less, not the creative association I would have come up with if I were producing this picture. But I didn't, so that's that.Anyway, Glenn Ford fans will want to catch him in one of his final leading roles, but that might be the single reason to recommend watching "Santee". Even so, I had to wince a few times, that is, whenever he got up on his horse - I didn't think he'd make it. In addition to his arsenal, he was packing on quite a few pounds at this stage of his career. He may have had a feared reputation as a bounty hunter, but he sure was no Josh Randall.

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.

The best features of this film are the scenery and Jay Silverheels in a part where he can show some emotions, compared with his stonefaced Tonto. In fact it's Ford who is bland for much of the film, despite the tragic loss of his son which is meant to have shaped his character; only in the very last scene does he convey real emotion - without saying a word.The plot is unconvincing several times over. At the beginning one would have thought four tough guys could have stood and fought rather than flee from Santee, renowned bounty-hunter he may be. After a brief wish for revenge, the orphaned Jody seems to too readily accept Santee as a surrogate father, and in the version of the film I saw I never noticed any evidence that he had become a gunman competent enough to accompany Santee against six more tough guys.A disappointment.

Few people remember that SANTEE was one of the very first feature films (and almost definitely the first Western) shot on videotape. Noted character actor Ed Platt, famous for his role as "The Chief" in the TV series GET SMART, reportedly invested his own money in this film, intending to champion the concept of shooting movies economically on videotape.The process used portable Philips (aka Norelco) video cameras and primitive Ampex 2" videotape recorders, which they powered via batteries while shooting on-location the desert and in and around California and Nevada. A 1973 issue of AMERICANCINEMATOGRAPHER covered the work done by director of photography Don Morgan and his crew, and went in-depth on the differences between shooting on film and shooting on video. Sadly, SANTEE was a flop in theaters, and Ed Platt lost his money and died less than a year after the movie was released.Three decades later, innovative filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez and George Lucas are using digital video gear to shoot movies. Ed Platt was definitely ahead of his time on SANTEE; sadly, he never lived to see the technology get to the point where it would work.