Viva Villa! – 1934
It is hard to love a hero who is a buffoon. That is the phrase that kept going through my mind as I watched this movie. On the one hand, I have grown to like Wallace Beery as an actor. On the other hand, I don’t think this was his best work. But I don’t think it was his fault. I would put the blame on the script writer and the director.
What I mean by that is the character of the Mexican hero, Pancho Villa, was portrayed as not only a moron, but a drunken criminal. I cannot believe that someone as utterly stupid as the character Beery portrayed could have done the things he did. In fact, in doing my research, I learned that the real Pancho Villa was a smart enough man who accomplished what he did mostly by brute force.
Unfortunately, the writer and the director dropped the ball. They turned him into an idiot with a gun. It never really explained why he was so popular. It never went into how he was able to win all his battles. Instead, they showed how he was a drunk, a womanizer, and a fool. They also went out of their way to show how Pancho Villa was a bandit, first and foremost. He was a common thug and criminal, but because he had the biggest army behind him, might made right.
Next, a pretty important plot point was changed: the manner of Villa’s captured the home of Teresa, played by Fay Wray, and brought her to a private room so that he could rape her. But then she pulled out a gun and shot him in the wrist. His henchman Sierra, played by Leo Carillo, came in along with the woman’s brother, Don Felipe de Castillo, played by Donald Cook. Sierra tried to shoot the Don, but shot Teresa instead. Don Filipe vowed vengeance against Villa, and it was he who assassinated him in the end. This is all made up.
In real life, nobody is exactly sure why Villa was gunned down. The popular myth is that one of his Generals had betrayed him and he had made it his goal to exterminate the General’s entire family. Unfortunately, they got him first.
Now, as I say these things, I have to also mention that before the film started, they let us know that this account was fictional and not historically accurate. Because they did that, I can’t blame them for not being true to life. But all that means is that I can’t fault the film makers from not following history. That doesn’t excuse them for making a film that made fun of a Mexican hero in the first place. If I was a Mexican who revered Pancho Villa as a national hero, this movie would have been deeply offensive to me.
Now, something they did in the structure of the film was a bit annoying. Whenever there was a part of Pancho Villa’s story that they didn’t want to film, they would show a screen full of text saying what happened. I can understand this at the beginning of a film as set-up for what we are going to watch. Many films do it, especially historical dramas. But to constantly be propelling the plot by making us read about it instead of showing us just seems like a cop-out.
When they are riding to battle to capture a town, either show me the battle or pick up the narrative after the battle and find some other way to let me know what happened during the fight. Don’t say “We are going to capture the town,” and then make me read about how the town was captured. That is why I went to the movies instead of reading the book.
And finally, everyone in the film spoke English. I have no problem with that. What I question is the fact that everyone else spoke perfect English except for Villa and Sierra who spoke with Mexican accents. But at least Sierra was able to speak in complete sentences. Villa could only speak broken English, usually in one or two word sentences, as if he was still trying to learn English. That made no sense if we can assume that they are all speaking Spanish. It only served to make him sound like more of a moron. On top of that, Beery’s accent kept slipping every now and then.
I’m sorry, but I didn’t particularly care for this film and I think it all comes down to my earlier statement. It is hard to love a hero who is a buffoon.