And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself

Plot

Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa (Antonio Banderas) finds himself without adequate funding to finance his war against the military-run government. He also finds himself at odds with the Americans because of the Hearst media empires press campaign against him. To counter both of these threats, he sends emissaries to movie producers to convince them to pay to film his progress and the actual battles. Producer D.W. Griffith (Colm Feore) is immediately interested and convinces Mutual Film Studios boss Harry E. Aitkin to send a film crew. Aitkins nephew Frank Thayer is initially a mere errand boy for the studio, but he makes a good impression with Villa, who demands that Thayer be placed in charge of the project. Thayer and a camera crew team film Villa leading his men to victory in battle. Despite the failure of this initial footage (which draws derisive laughter from potential backers) Thayer convinces Aitkin to invest even more money in a second attempt, and also convinces Villa to participate in making a more narrative film.

Thayer returns to Mexico with a director, actors, producers, cameramen and screen writers, and begin to film Villas previous exploits using a younger actor, future film director Raoul Walsh (Kyle Chandler). The filming goes well, although Villa becomes angry that the screenwriters and the director have changed history to make a more dramatic film. However, he agrees to do a cameo appearance as an older version of himself. Meanwhile, Frank begins a romance with actress Teddy Sampson (Alexa Davalos) whom hes had a crush on since they first met. One night Villa announces that they will attack a Federal held fort at Torreon and win the revolution. The films director and his crew tell Villa that they are not coming with him to film the battle. Villa scares them into going to the battle by having a firing squad shoot over their heads.

The next morning, Villa assembles his men to attack Torreon. Thayer and his team go into film the action. After a skirmish on the way to the fort, Villas army arrives at Torreon and lays siege to the fortress. Villa orders an attack and personally leads the charge. Villas army is initially successful, but they suffer heavy casualties and are forced to withdraw. That night, Villa orders his army to bombard Torreon into submission, and, after a long, brutal bombardment, Villas cavalry finish off the last of Torreons Federal defenders. However, Thayer and his camera crew team witness Villa personally shooting a Mexican widow in cold blood with his handgun during the aftermath of the battle. Disgusted, the team leaves.

The Life of General Villa is shown in theaters in America, and to great success, although Thayer and his camera crew members regret making the film.

Nine years later General Villa is driving his car with an associate and two of his bodyguards through Parral, Chihuahua. His car is flagged down by a Mexican civilian, when several Federals suddenly pop up with machine guns. Villa reaches for his pistol, but is shot several times and is killed.

Cast

Context

Raoul Walsh, who played Villa as a young man in The Life of General Villa, wrote extensively about the experience in his autobiography Each Man in His Time, describing Villas charisma as well as noting that peasants would knock the teeth out of corpses with rocks in the wake of firing squads in order to harvest the gold fillings, which was captured on film and had the projectionists vomiting in the screening room back in Los Angeles.

The original films producer, D.W. Griffith, directed The Birth of a Nation in 1915, which featured Walsh as John Wilkes Booth. That same year, Walsh directed the first gangster movie, Regeneration, on location in the Lower East Side of New York City, and went on to direct approximately 138 movies, including such films as The Big Trail (1930) with John Wayne (Walsh discovered Wayne as a propman, renamed him, and cast him in the lead), High Sierra (1941) with Humphrey Bogart, They Died With Their Boots On (1941) with Errol Flynn, White Heat (1949) with James Cagney, and Band of Angels (1957) with Clark Gable and Sidney Portier.

Accolades