Viva Villa!

Viva Villa!

Film poster
Directed by Jack Conway
Uncredited:
Howard Hawks
William Wellman
Produced by David O. Selznick
Written by Ben Hecht
Uncredited:
Howard Hawks
James Kevin McGuinness
Howard Emmett Rogers
Based on Viva Villa! (book)
by Edgecumb Pinchon
O.B. Stade
Starring Wallace Beery
Fay Wray
Leo Carrillo
Music by Herbert Stothart
Cinematography Charles G. Clarke
James Wong Howe
Gabriel Figueroa
Edited by George Amy
Distributed by MGM
Release dates
  • April 10, 1934 (1934-04-10)
Running time
 115 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1,022,000[1]
Box office $1,875,000[1]

Viva Villa! is a 1934 American Pre-Code film starring Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa and was written by Ben Hecht, adapted from the book Viva Villa!. The film was shot on location in Mexico and directed by Jack Conway. There was uncredited assistance with the script by Howard Hawks, James Kevin McGuinness, and Howard Emmett Rogers. Hawks and William A. Wellman were also uncredited directors on the film.

The film is a fictionalized biography of Pancho Villa starring Beery, Leo Carrillo and Fay Wray. The supporting cast features Donald Cook, Stuart Erwin, Henry B. Walthall, Joseph Schildkraut and Katherine DeMille.

Cast

Plot

After seeing his poor father lose his land and be whipped to death for protesting, young Pancho Villa stabs one of the killers, then heads off into the hills of Chihuahua, Mexico during the 1880s. As a grown man, Villa and a band of rebel bandits, including his trusted ally Sierra, kill wealthy landowners and become heroes to their fellow "peons."

A wealthy aristocrat, Don Felipe, arranges an introduction for Villa to the distinguished and eloquent Francisco Madero, who resents what has become of Mexico under the rule of president Porfirio Díaz and persuades Villa to help him fight for liberty, not just for personal gain. The coarse and illiterate Villa is humbled in the presence of Madero and agrees to fight for his cause. He also is attracted to Don Felipe's beautiful sister Teresa, although there are many women in Villa's life, including one he is married to, Rosita.

Villa's exploits are made even more colorful by an American newspaper reporter, Johnny Sykes, to whom Villa has taken a great liking. While drunk, Sykes is misinformed and reports that Villa has already overtaken the village of Santa Rosalia in a great victory for his men. Disobeying the orders of Madero and the arrogant General Pascal, simply to help his newspaper friend, Villa stages a raid on Santa Rosalia, as well as on Juarez.

Madero ultimately assumes office in Mexico City, then commands Villa to disband his personal army. Villa agrees, but when Sierra kills a bank teller just so Villa can withdraw his money, Villa himself ends up sentenced to death. A gloating General Pascal mocks the way Villa pleads for his life, then reads a telegram from Madero, ordering that Villa instead be exiled from the country.

Alone and drunk in El Paso, Texas, feeling forsaken by his homeland, Villa is visited by Sykes, who informs him that Madero has been assassinated by the power-mad Pascal and his men. Villa returns to Mexico and rebuilds his own army, recruiting tens of thousands to ride by his side. Together they storm the capital, where Pascal is subjected to a particularly gruesome death. Villa takes what he wants, but when Teresa resists and he physically assaults her, she draws a gun that her brother Don Felipe has given her for protection. Sierra intervenes and murders her.

Villa appoints himself president but is ineffectual, unable to restore Madero's dream of land reform for Mexico's poor. He ultimately agrees to step aside and go back to where he belongs, including to his wife. Before he can, with Sykes by his side, Villa is gunned down by Don Felipe out of revenge for his sister. Sykes vows to keep Villa's memory alive, telling his dying friend that he is no longer news, but history.

Reception

The film was very popular at the box office.[2]

Box office

The film grossed a total (domestic and foreign) of $1,875,000: $941,000 from the US and Canada and $934,000 elsewhere. It made a profit of $87,000.[1]

Awards

The picture was nominated for the following Academy Awards:[3]

Viva Villa! partially inspired the creation of Elia Kazan's 1952 film Viva Zapata!, written by John Steinbeck and starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. ↑ Churchill, Douglas W. The Year in Hollywood: 1934 May Be Remembered as the Beginning of the Sweetness-and-Light Era (gate locked); New York Times [New York, N.Y] 30 Dec 1934: X5. Retrieved December 16, 2013.
  3. ↑ "The 7th Academy Awards (1935) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-07.

Further reading

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