Cheap Viva Villa (Video) (Jack Conway, William A. Wellman, Howard Hawks) Price

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Customer Reviews of Viva Villa

+1/2. Progressive, given the era it was made in
Wallace Beery stars in this surprisingly raw, graphically violent (and yet, somehow somewhat sentimentalized) Hollywood version of the life of Pancho Villa, one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. Character actor Leo Carillo, infamous as a latino Uncle Tom for his portrayal as Pancho in the "Ceesco Keed" series, here costars as Sierra, Villa's blandly sadistic lieutenant, and Faye Wray appears as an aristocratic lady who catches Villa's fancy. Ben Hecht's sharp, no-nonsense script is politically left-leaning, and while it takes liberties with its depictation of Villa as a brutish lout with a heart of gold, Beery's performance sheds unexpected nuance... Basically, he's transposing his loveable-mug boxer persona onto the Mexican landscape, but in a weird way, it almost works. Apparently this film had a stop-and-start shooting history, with three directors (Howard Hawks and William Wellman worked on it, but didn't wind up in the final credits) and some extensive recasting as well; James Wong Howe provides some typically fine B&W cinematography. A dynamic classic old film, with a relatively sympathetic presentation of the Latin American peasantry... Worth checking out, even though the racial aspects of the film are at times dubious.

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Hollywoody Radicalism During The New Deal
The other reviewers are certainly correct in lambasting "Viva Villa!" as unhistorical and even, by contemporary sensibilities, offensive in certain characterizations. But what is moving, and even inspiring, is the film's recognition of the injustice of a society in which the poor and wretched are treated contemptibly, as if they were little more than animals. Villa's ferocity (as portrayed by the incomparable Beery, a hard and difficult man in a role made for him), the cold cruelty of Leo Carrillo's character, and the general mayhem of the Mexican Revolution are perhaps Hollywood's sly way of saying that 1930s Depression America also had deep injustices that needed addressing -- or who knows what could happen here! As usual, the "message" is leavened with lots of action and some broad comedy, but Beery's Villa -- even when presented as the "comic Mexican" -- evinces a sinister seriousness, as if to say, "I may talk funny and look funny to you; I may seem ignorant but I know what is being done to people." This is a radical film disguised as entertainment: it could be better radicalism, true, but it is very good entertainment! The film really does have something to say -- although (as do too many "Hollywoody" films that attempt political topics) it "lays it between [or rather, among] the lines."

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Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa.
The historical accuracy of this lavish film is nil except that it does depict the sheer wholesale violence of the Mexican Revolution, in which whole villages disappeared off the maps forever. It also was filmed closely enough in time to the events depicted that the costumes are quite accurate, and I think that I read that some actual footage from the era was mixed into the movie, but I'm not positive of that. This film stands out as the best and most worthwhile Pancho Villa effort so far simply because of the obvious but incomparable casting of Wallace Beery as Villa. Beery effortlessly brings the macho leadership quality that Raoul Walsh wrote about in his references to Villa in his autobiography, "Each Man In His Time," and has received no competition from any of the later fine actors that have attempted the part. Beery brings a sense of outrageous flamboyance and sheer fun to everything he does on screen, and even though his Mexican accent fades in and out like a distant radio signal, he was born to play this part. Leo Carillo gives an uncharacteristically restrained performance, King Kong's Fay Wray is incandescently beautiful, and among cast members only Stuart Erwin, who plays the American reporter, grates the nerves a bit. Lee Tracy was originally cast for that one and would have been worlds better, but a drunken urination from his hotel balcony onto the Mexican crowds below effectively ended his career.