Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. plays the title character, a bandit who badgers the government forces in Mexico, then becomes an even bigger headache for them as a revolutionary commander for Francisco Madero.
He’s prodded in that direction by first-hand experience of how peons are treated. He was once put to the whip. His sister is raped by a rich landowner. And the federal troops use his mother’s death as an attempt to ambush him.
When he’s not seeking revenge, Villa has quite the eye for the ladies. And he becomes fixated with an American saloon singer named Julie (Margia Dean). He offers her a job in a cantina in Mexico, though his real interest is in making her another of his many “wives.”
She initially declines, then reconsiders when Villa sends a gunrunner named Bill Harmon to fetch her. What Pancho doesn’t know is that Harmon and Julie were once lovers. What they know is that rekindling that love and angering Villa could mean death.
Review:
A couple of real turkeys have been foisted upon Western fans in the name of Pancho Villa, and this is one of them.
Brian Keith gets top billing, though he doesn’t show up until 11 minutes into a 70-minute film. And way too much of that abbreviated run time is spent on footage of Villa and his troops riding across the countryside.
For the first 30 minutes, there’s more saloon singing than action. Which might be fine if Margia Dean was the second coming of Marlene Dietrich. She isn’t, though the credits indicate she wrote some of the lyrics to her own musical numbers here.
The big action scene comes when Pancho’s men raid a town that’s a key railroad hub. And it’s crudely done as Villa’s men ride straight toward barricaded government troops and promptly get mowed down until their leader decides the occasion calls for a craftier battle plan.
Director James Clark made two other Westerns, “Sierra Baron” in the same year (also starring Keith) and the much better “One Foot in Hell,” a 1960 film starring Alan Ladd. Clark aslo directed 15 episodes of the “Batman” TV series.
Director:
James B. Clark
Cast:
Brian Keith … Bill Harmon
Cesar Romero … Tomas Lopez
Margia Dean … Julie
Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. … Pancho Villa
Carlos Muzquiz … Cabo
Mario Navarro … Pajarito
Ben Wright … Francisco Madero
Elise Loti … Manuela
Enrique Lucero … Tenorio
Resenda Monteros … Marianna (Villa’s sister)
Felix Gonzalez .. Don Octavio
Jose Espinoza … Posado
Rafael Alcayde … Don Alfonso
Alberto Gutierrez … Maj. Domo
Jose Trevino … Capt. Castillo
Runtime: 73 min.
Songs:
“Men, Men, Men”
“Just Between Friends”
“A Lonely Kind of Love”
Memorable lines:
Officer #1: “We are big fools. The mountain towns are safe. Instead, we come to Chihuahua City. What for?”
Tomas Lopez: “More women.”
Officer #1: “More expensive.”
Tomas: “Much prettier.”
Officer #1: “When you want a burro to pull your wagon up a hill, do you ask, ‘Is the burro pretty?’ No. All you ask is ‘Can the burro pull your wagon?'”
Julie: “Bill, this may embarrass you, but why did you walk out on me?”
Bill Harmon: “Because I’m nobody going no place, just like I am now.”
Pancho, explaining his motivation to Madero: “Yes, I have killed for gold and I have killed for women. Maybe there is something wrong with my hearing, but I have heard no complaints from the women.”
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