IMDb RATING
6.3/10
1.6K
YOUR RATING
After enacting revenge on the overseer who murdered his father, Pancho Villa becomes a bandit, earning the respect of the poor by brutally attacking the wealthy.After enacting revenge on the overseer who murdered his father, Pancho Villa becomes a bandit, earning the respect of the poor by brutally attacking the wealthy.After enacting revenge on the overseer who murdered his father, Pancho Villa becomes a bandit, earning the respect of the poor by brutally attacking the wealthy.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 4 wins & 4 nominations total
Katherine DeMille
- Rosita Morales
- (as Katherine de Mille)
- Directors
- Jack Conway
- Howard Hawks(uncredited)
- William A. Wellman(uncredited)
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOn 19 November 1933, during location filming in Mexico, Lee Tracy, originally cast as Johnny Sykes, got drunk and urinated from his hotel balcony onto a passing military parade. He was arrested, fired from the film and replaced by Stuart Erwin. Original director Howard Hawks was also fired for refusing to testify against Tracy, and replaced by Jack Conway. However, in his autobiography, Charles G. Clarke, the cinematographer on the picture, said that he was standing outside the hotel during the parade and the incident never happened. Tracy, he said, was standing on the balcony observing the parade when a Mexican in the street below made an obscene gesture at him. Tracy replied in kind, and the next day a local newspaper printed a story that said, in effect, Tracy had insulted Mexico, Mexicans in general and the Mexican flag in particular. The story caused an uproar in Mexico, and MGM decided to sacrifice Tracy in order to be allowed to continue filming there.
- GoofsPresident Madero is shown as being overthrown in a coup by Gen. Pascal, who then shoots him. In reality, there was no such general named Pascal; Madero was assassinated on the orders of Gen. Victoriano Huerta, who did overthrow him but who did not personally shoot him.
- Quotes
Jonny Sykes: [typing] Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of Jonny Sykes.
- Alternate versionsIn the original version of this film, during the scene in which Wallace Beery tries to rape Fay Wray and she shoots him in the arm, Beery horsewhips her after she begins laughing hysterically at him. The whipping is shown only by their shadows on the wall. After the Production Code went into effect, this scene was edited, and it is the edited version that was officially available for years. In 2015, the scene was restored, and was reinstated in the Warner Archive Collection DVD.
- ConnectionsFeatured in David O. Selznick: 'Your New Producer' (1935)
- SoundtracksLa Cucaracha
(uncredited)
Traditional
New lyrics by Ned Washington
Sung by chorus at intervals throughout film
Played as background music often
Featured review
Genius On Horseback
So Pancho Villa did not conquer Mexico twice, one for his dear friend Madero, and again to preserve Madero's legacy. We'll agree that the story of this movie is typical Hollywood piffle, ahistorical hokum about how Wallace Beery, sometimes playing the villain he did so often in the 1920s, sometimes the clown in his later years, did this stuff for love of Henry B. Walthall (in his own last great role as Madero). Half of it was the stuff that the yellow press offered to feed a bored nation to the north, and half of it was stuff the film makers made up because it made no sense to them.
Even so, there is a kernel of truth in the story that defies our understanding: how could a peasant, ignorant as pig manure, do what he did? Part of it can be explained by the utter incompetence of the people his forces faced, the stultified and decadent rulers of Mexico who held power out of habit. They could not conceive of a challenge, and so they did not bother making what they had worth fighting and dying for. And so, when they faced men and women who had taken from them everything worth living for, they lost. And those who took it from them saw in Villa someone who was one of them, writ larger, and loved him for that, and did the impossible.
One of the slogans of the US Marines is "'The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer. " That's exactly backwards. The difficult takes as long as it takes. We know how to do the difficult; it's just hard. The impossible, though is another matter. What we call 'impossible' is often just something that no one has ever done before. All it takes is a different perspective, and the will, and ever afterwards, people will say of it "Oh, any idiot could have done that." Quite true. That's the different perspective. That perspective is genius.
And that's why Villa was a genius. He did what no one thought possible, because no one thought of doing it that way, because it was impossible. The French had their jacqueries, the English Wat Tyler's Rebellion, Germany and Austria-Hungary the 1848. None of these had come to anything. Educated people knew that. Educated people have a hard time dealing with genius. Education can teach you to do things that others have already done, and give you a chance to make a small advance. But genius, the overturning of an accepted order usually comes from the outside; insiders have no need to overturn society, they are quite happy to become part of it, to buy in. Villa, having gotten what he wanted, turned his back on the whole affair, because it did not interest him. He had what he wanted, he went home, and he was shot. And because no one could make sense of what he did, could reconcile the two, Wallace Beery could play him as half clown and half villain.
Now, as to the question of who really wrote Shakespeare....
Even so, there is a kernel of truth in the story that defies our understanding: how could a peasant, ignorant as pig manure, do what he did? Part of it can be explained by the utter incompetence of the people his forces faced, the stultified and decadent rulers of Mexico who held power out of habit. They could not conceive of a challenge, and so they did not bother making what they had worth fighting and dying for. And so, when they faced men and women who had taken from them everything worth living for, they lost. And those who took it from them saw in Villa someone who was one of them, writ larger, and loved him for that, and did the impossible.
One of the slogans of the US Marines is "'The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer. " That's exactly backwards. The difficult takes as long as it takes. We know how to do the difficult; it's just hard. The impossible, though is another matter. What we call 'impossible' is often just something that no one has ever done before. All it takes is a different perspective, and the will, and ever afterwards, people will say of it "Oh, any idiot could have done that." Quite true. That's the different perspective. That perspective is genius.
And that's why Villa was a genius. He did what no one thought possible, because no one thought of doing it that way, because it was impossible. The French had their jacqueries, the English Wat Tyler's Rebellion, Germany and Austria-Hungary the 1848. None of these had come to anything. Educated people knew that. Educated people have a hard time dealing with genius. Education can teach you to do things that others have already done, and give you a chance to make a small advance. But genius, the overturning of an accepted order usually comes from the outside; insiders have no need to overturn society, they are quite happy to become part of it, to buy in. Villa, having gotten what he wanted, turned his back on the whole affair, because it did not interest him. He had what he wanted, he went home, and he was shot. And because no one could make sense of what he did, could reconcile the two, Wallace Beery could play him as half clown and half villain.
Now, as to the question of who really wrote Shakespeare....
helpful•00
- boblipton
- Mar 18, 2023
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Viva Villa: İstiklal Uğrunda
- Filming locations
- Chihuahua, Mexico(MGM press release, 1941)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $1,017,400 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 55 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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