[Dr. Sivana]

My great-uncle John was around in those days. There was actually considerable sympathy for Villa. He said they were just hungry.

Blackelk relayed a story to me about Pancho Villa crossing the border incognito, getting into a card game with U.S. soldiers, and winning big. When the soldiers thought they could welch on a lone Mexican, they found themselves surrounded by shooters, and paid up.

A fiend of mine who is a student of the history of cinema told me that Pancho Villa actually had a movie crew follow him to bank holdups, and couldn’t market the products, as they were not realistic enough, in the silent movie era!

Quite the character.

[wally_bert]

The movie stuff sounds like part of a plot from an episode of the short lived Nichols series.

[driftless2]

Villa was very brutal. He had little regard for human life. It was common for both sides after a battle to shoot anybody who surrendered.

I read a book about Villa and Zapata a few years ago. They estimate about one million Mexicans were killed during the civil war out of population of around 20 million.