Pancho Villa (1972)

Released in 1972 and directed by Eugenio Martín, "Pancho Villa" is a Western farce starring Telly Savalas as the eponymous Mexican revolutionary general who decides to "invade" America with his raid on Columbus, New Mexico, a town three miles from the border, on March 9, 1916. Clint Walker plays his right-hand man, Scotty with Anne Francis as the latter's wife in a troubled marriage. Chuck Connors plays the US Army officer assigned to repelling the raid. In real life, Pancho was commander of the northern division of the Constitutional Army and governor of the northern state of Chihuahua, Mexico. He was in line for leadership of Mexico and thus had the sympathy of the US Feds who ultimately forsook Villa in favor of his rival, Carranza, who defeated Villa in two major Mexican battles in 1915. Embittered, Pancho took his wrath out on America with his raid on Columbus, which was a slap in the face to the USA, resulting in the death of 8 American soldiers and 10 civilians. Woodrow Wilson retaliated by sending General Pershing and a punitive expedition into Mexico to apprehend Villa. They went pretty deep south of the border, capturing and killing several of Villa's lieutenants, but failed to capture the famous revolutionary himself. The Perishing expedition ended due to Mexican protests and the US entering into WWI. Villa died seven years later when assassins ambushed his car in Parral, Chihuahua.The movie focuses on the Battle of Columbus and is an odd mixture of serious drama/violence and utterly goofy comedy, like the ridiculous kill-the-fly sequence, which I guess was to make fun of Connor's more-military-than-thou character. Due to the farcical elements it's hard to take the radical violence seriously. Is it funny to see Mexican citizens shockingly shot on the spot at Villa's whim? Is it funny to see American soldiers & civilians slain during the raid on Columbus? For me, this absurdly incongruous tone ruins the movie. Despite my cavils, "Pancho Villa" is somewhat entertaining as a what-were-they-thinking early 70's curiosity, not to mention Savalas & Walker are amusing as the protagonists and Connors as the often silly antagonist. As for Anne, she was still stunning. For anyone who's interested, Savalas sings the credits' song. Obviously this movie shouldn't be taken too seriously, but it IS somewhat amusing, highlighted by a great train collision at the climax, not to mention the movie DOES inspire you to research the real-life events. A joint English/Spanish/American production, the film runs 92 minutes and was shot in Spain. GRADE: Borderline C-/C (4.5/10 Stars)

comedy, western,cartoon, music and Telly Savalas. in one film. a film about nothing except easy amusing. because each character is only caricature. few fight scenes are not worthy spice for this salad.and poor Pancho Villa is absent. his story is only subject for not very inspired party. is it a disappointment ? no way ! it is only slice from a time.small experiment for a kind of public, ironic piece about USA and different form of cartoon about a really Mexican hero.nothing more. after 40 years it can be a curiosity. but the purpose is entertainment, discover of a good actor as clown and few drops of comedy with French nuances.

Telly Savalas put on a passable (but no better than that) performance as Pancho Villa, the notorious Mexican bandit/revolutionary in this account of Villa's raid on the town of Columbus, New Mexico in 1916. Villa is not really a historical figure who I'm overly familiar with, so I won't say much about the historical details of the film. As a movie, this isn't great, although it has a smattering here and there of both action and humour. Chuck Connors' performance as Colonel Wilcox, commander of the U.S. Army base near Columbus struck me as a bit over the top, and Clint Walker as Villa's Gringo sidekick Scotty didn't really do very much for me. The movie is obviously a pretty low budget effort of limited technical quality. For a movie with a runtime of only slightly over an hour and a half I have to say that this movie dragged in places, particularly in the last 20 minutes or so. Villa's raid into the United States was an interesting (if, in the overall scheme of things, not especially important) historical sidebar, and probably deserved better treatment than this. 4/10

Finally, the mystery solved as to how Telly Savalas became bald! Starting out, "Pancho Villa" appears to be a serious treatment of the Mexican revolutionary's legend, but it quickly dissolves into a farcical comedy Western. Things get under way somewhat tentatively with Colonel Wilcox' (Chuck Connors) 'fly in the mess hall scene', quickly followed by Villa trading a horse for Miss Clara's tin lizzy. By the time Villa feigns being dead, I realized for sure that this one was intended to be an over the top flick, with Savalas going over the top more than once. Without even knowing anything about the historical Pancho Villa, I'm sure this film had nothing remotely to do with him.It's always neat though, to see legendary TV Western personalities make a comeback, in this case, both 'Rifleman's' Connors, and Cheyenne Bodie himself, Clint Walker. Walker portrays Villa's American sidekick, though it's never made clear why he sides with the Mexicans. A full decade following the end of the 'Cheyenne' series, he looks as good as ever, but it's a mystery why he's in that seafaring get up, though it makes as much sense in it's way as the rest of the film. Even Anne Francis makes an appearance as Scotty's (Walker) ex-wife, giving further star power to this revolutionary tale.Others on this board have mentioned that train crash scene with some enthusiasm, so I'm not sure if the print I viewed was edited in some way. It appeared to me that once the locomotives made contact with each other the action froze and then we see the aftermath. Why not just show the whole wreck take place, unless it was to save those great antiques for real.Best line of the film - "He don't need a doctor, he needs a change of underwear", as a doctor removes a lizard from Pancho's shirt while he appears to be dying from some sort of convulsion. But the one each of the principals had to be thinking by the end of the story - "You know, if I was you, I'd jump off this train".