Robert Blake is Willie Boy, a Paiute Indian who’s fallen in love with a girl named Lola (Katherine Ross) on the Morongo Reservation in California at the turn of the century.
He tried to run off with her once, but her father disapproves of the union. And when the father catches them making love, Willie winds up killing him with his own rifle.
And so Willie Boy and Lola flee on foot. They have little to fear, Willie tells her. No one cares about Indians in the West of 1909.
But Dr. Elizabeth Arnold (Susan Clark), who runs the reservation, wants Lola back. And Deputy Sheriff Cooper (Robert Redford) is the man tasked with accomplishing that mission.
When he tires of the chase, an old-timer named Ray Calvert (Barry Sullivan) insists on taking command of the posse. And when Willie Boy starts shooting the posse’s horses to buy time, Calvert winds up wounded.
With President Taft visiting the area, the incident is soon blown out of proportion until posses are descending from four directions to quell a possible Paiute uprising.
So Cooper returns to the hunt, determined to get his man, scolding himself for becoming distracted by politics and the comfort of Arnold’s bed in the first place.
Robert Blake as Willie Boy in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Robert Redford as Deputy Sheriff Cooper in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Review:
Well done chase film that also serves as an indictment of racism toward Indians at the turn of the century.
Willie Boy, having already served 30 days in jail just for getting drunk, is scorned by every white man he comes across.
Redford’s character, meanwhile, has an odd relationship with Arnold. She has little respect for him, he has little for her, but they’re inexplicably drawn to one another.
Barry Sullivan does a fine job as a former Indian fighter who sees tracking down Willie as a way to relive his past. The film also features a very well-handled ending.
Redford was a red-hot star at the time of this film’s release. Blake was a child star during the 1940s, starring in the Red Ryder Westerns and as the Mexican youth in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. He’d return to TV stardom in the crime series “Baretta” (1975-78).
This marked the first film in 20 years for director Abraham Polonsky, who had been blacklisted for refusing to testify at congressional hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. It’s partly based on a true story of an Indian known as Willie Boy and one of the West’s last manhunts.
Katharine Ross as Lola in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Susan Clark as Dr. Elizabeth Arnold in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Directed by:
Abraham Polonsky
Cast:
Robert Redford … Deputy Sheriff Cooper
Katharine Ross … Lola
Robert Blake … Willie Boy
Susan Clark … Dr. Elizabeth Arnold
Barry Sullivan … Ray Calvert
John Vernon … George Hacker
Charles Aidman … Judge Benby
Charles McGraw … Sheriff Wilson
Shelly Novack … Finney
Robert Lipton … Charlie Newcombe
Lloyd Gough … Dexter
Ned Romero … Tom
John Wheeler … Newman
Erik Holland … Digger
Garry Walberg … Dr. Mills
Jerry Velasco … Chino
George Tyne … Le Marie
Lee de Broux … Meathead
Wayne Sutherlin … Harry
Runtime: 98 min.
Barry Sullivan as Ray Calvert, former Indian fighter in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
John Vernon (left) as George Hacker and Robert Lipton (right) as Charlie Newcombe, part of the posse chasing Willie Boy in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Memorable lines:
Lola: “Why do you want trouble?”
Willie Boy: “It goes with you.”
Ray Calvert: “That’s the way to be born if you gotta be born, Coop. Boston money, smart and snotty, everything handed to you. The superintendent of this Indian reservation here has got the finest legs I’ve ever seen on man or beast. Too bad she don’t like you, Coop. There’s gold in them hills.”
Elizabeth Arnold about her coupling with Cooper: “I use you the way you use me. And if you weren’t a fool playing sheriff in a dusty little market town you’d know that. You’d know something.”
Robert Blake as Willie Boy on the run with Lola (Katharine Ross) in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Susan Clark as Dr. Elizabeth Arnold and Robert Redford as Deputy Sheriff Cooper in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Willie Boy to Lola: “I asked for you white man’s way. And I asked for you Indian way. And he (her father) chased me with a gun.”
Willie Boy to Lola: “They won’t catch up, Lola. They won’t even try. Nobody gives a damn what Indians do. Nobody.”
Lola, about taking on the posse: “It’s crazy. You can’t win. You can’t beat them. Never.”
Willie Boy: “Maybe. Maybe. But they’ll know I was here.”
Cooper to Elizabeth Arnold, all decked out for the upcoming presidential reception: “I’ve never seen you in full Eastern warpaint before.”
Charles McGraw as Sheriff Wilson in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
Barry Sullivan as Ray Calvert with Robert Redford as Deputy Sheriff Cooper in Tell Them WIllie Boy Was Here (1969)
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