Hollywood bought war, and war won (HBO Pancho Villa Movie Tonight)

Miami Herald ^ | September 7, 2003 | GLENN GARVIN

[PJ-Comix]

Though Villa's deal with Hollywood was well-known at the time -- many editorial pages ran withering cartoons of directors surrounded by chaos and carnage screaming ''Cut! I'm out of film!'' -- it was almost completely forgotten before Maurer began his research. (A 1,000-page biography of Villa published in 1998 devotes scarcely a page to it.)

Um....Actually I've known about this Hollywood Deal that Pancho Villa had for years. However, I could understand how historians would ignore it. This interferes with their vision of Villa as some sort of revolutionary hero instead of a glorified self-serving horse thief. However, I will definitely be watching this movie tonight since I enjoy all movies about Pancho Villa. Yul Brynner starred as Pancho Villa in one movie. It wasn't very accurate but it was fun to watch. Antonio Banderas will need to put on some weight to better portray the paunchy Pancho. If D.W. Griffith is portrayed in this movie, it will be the second such portrayal I've seen of that director. The other movie portraying Griffith was Babylon which was really terrific.

[Texas_Jarhead]

"This interferes with their vision of Villa as some sort of revolutionary hero instead of a glorified self-serving horse thief."

He was a freakin terrorist too. I nearly got myself thrown in the pokey during a visit to a mexican food restaurant where a whole wall was devoted to Pancho Villa. Almost like a shrine. I asked the manager when they were going to hang some pictures of Timothy McVeigh or Osama Bin Laden since they too were terrorists that killed innocent Americans.

[PJ-Comix]

I nearly got myself thrown in the pokey during a visit to a mexican food restaurant where a whole wall was devoted to Pancho Villa.

I was also in a Mexican restaurant where the walls were covered with pics of Pancho Villa and other scenes of the Mexican Revolution. My reaction was different. I actually enjoyed looking at those photos. One reason is that the Mexican Revolution was an extension of the Old West. Although the Old West in the USA was over by 1895, it kept on going in Mexico for at least another 20 years. One reason was that Mexico was rather undeveloped compared to the USA. In Villa's time there were still few cars and little electricity outside the big cities. Also the Mexican Revolution kept Mexico in a state of anarchy where there was little law and order. Note that The Wild Bunch movie took place in Mexico during their Revolution. The Old West was long gone in the USA back then but it lived on in Mexico. As to Villa's crimes, it was so long ago that I really don't get too worked up over them. I just enjoy movies about Villa so I am looking forward to tonight's movie.

[Mark was here]

I recall a movie back around 1970ish, where Poncho lined up Mexicans 7 or 8 deep in a row and shot the first one to see how many folks the bullet would go thru... real nice guy.

[PJ-Comix]

I recall a movie back around 1970ish, where Poncho lined up Mexicans 7 or 8 deep in a row and shot the first one to see how many folks the bullet would go thru... real nice guy.

I think that was the one where Yul Brynner portrayed Pancho Villa. However, it was a MOVIE. I don't think that ever happened although Villa was certainly no angel. However, as I said, Villa was so far in the past that I get no more worked up over his crimes than I do that of Jesse James. Don't tell me you're still outraged at Jesse James' robberies?

[PJ-Comix]

Here's another pic of Pancho Villa and his men. Say what you want about him, he was colorful. BTW, I just found out that there were two US military expeditions against Villa. One was in 1916 led by Pershing which I already know about. The other one was in 1919 about which I don't know a thing. It would be interesting to research this second expedition. I wonder if was also led by horse cavalry as the 1916 expedition was.

[TigersEye]

(he had dozens of wives, scores of children)

I do believe that's incorrect. He had dozens of women and may have had scores of children but it has long been held that he married only one. She still lived in Chihuahua in the late sixties and had a museum in her big home which included the bullet riddled Dodge. My mom still has a photo of our family with Luz Corral, Villa's "official" wife. I found this site about her and the museum. It says she died in 1981. She was a nice old lady in '67 or '69, I forget which trip to Mexico we went there.

[PJ-Comix]

I think he just told a lot of women that he was marrying them with ceremonies and all but those "marriages" had no weight in law.

[TigersEye]

The things men will say for a roll in the hay. ;^)

[TigersEye]

Here's a picture of Pancho you don't often see. It's displayed twice as big at the source which is from a
site that sells posters of Pancho and Zapata.

[Publius]

A number of years ago, a Mexican village had a controversy about which skull belonged to Pancho Villa. There were two skulls, one much larger than the other. After a vote, the town elders solemnly decreed that both skulls belonged to Villa. One skull was Villa as a teenager, and the other was Villa as an adult.

[Publius]

Ohmigod! It's Cheech Marin!

[y2k_free_radical]

rotflmao= in 1961 i was threatened by a group of old ladies on a miami beach bus when i suggested they were receiving a whole lot more from social security than they should based on their contributions

[y2k_free_radical]

the yankee banks made him do it

[TigersEye]

Yes, Pancho Villa is an immortale. The assassination in Parral was a ruse. Pancho is Cheech now.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

That was Viva Villa. Charles Bronson played Rudolfo Fierro, who had a pretty nasty and probably well-earned reputation. That depiction of experimenting with how many bodies one bullet can go through may very well have been based on a real event, or it may just be one of the legends of the Revolution.

[ErnBatavia]

That pic is the spitting image of Alfonso, my gardener...he wields a mean leafblower.

[metesky]

A scene stolen from Viva Villa! (1934) starring Wallace Beery as Villa and Leo Carrillo as his right-hand man who does the line-'em-up trick to save ammo.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The Dusty Trail The Pancho Villa Punitive Expedition, 1916-1917

Just after midnight on June 14–15, 1919, some 1,200 Villistas attacked the Carrancista garrison at Juárez. By the next night, stray shots from the battle had killed and wounded some Americans in next-door El Paso, Texas. Brigadier General James B. Erwin, in command at Fort Bliss, Texas, decided to cross the border and disperse the Villistas. His artillery bombarded the Juárez racetrack, where the Villistas were concentrated, killing many of them. Then Colonel S.R.H. "Tommy" Tompkins--older brother of Major Frank Tompkins and himself a veteran of the Punitive Expedition--led the 2nd Cavalry Brigade (composed of units from the 7th and 5th Cavalry Regiments) across the Rio Grande just south of Juárez. At the same time, infantrymen from the 24th Infantry Regiment poured into Juárez across the Santa Fe Street bridge. Caught in a pincer movement, the Villistas "scattered like quail," in Tompkins's words. The U.S. troops immediately returned to American soil.

[PJ-Comix]

That pic is the spitting image of Alfonso, my gardener...he wields a mean leafblower.

I've seen a lot of Mexicans who have that Pancho Villa look.