San Antonio

I admit, this is the first Flynn movie I have seen. I have long been intrigued by the actor's reputation: as THE dashing movie swashbuckler and dandy. After seeing San Antonio, I find that that reputation seems well earned. Flynn's Clay Hardin is a bit of a super-hero, tossing witty dialog right and left, outsmarting and outfighting bad guys, charming ladies effortlessly and looking swell throughout all. As Westerns go, it does not hold up well with the more dramatic and textured movies that started being made a few years later; the plot is not exactly the most believable and the film is loaded with perfectly stock characters (conniving cattleman, scheming Acadian, loyal father figure/partner, etc.). Then again, it is clearly a different sort of movie and I recommend it as that; a pulp Western, the sort of pulp that Indiana Jones is homage to, a story of villains, damsels, and one unstoppable roguish hero.