Hollywood makes a deal with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa to film his war and recreate his life.
Bill Pullman, aka President Whitmore from Independence Day, reveals what the movie studio wanted to call the film.
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Title: And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (TV Movie 2003)
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Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Antonio Banderas | ... | Pancho Villa | |
| Eion Bailey | ... | Frank Thayer | |
| Alan Arkin | ... | Sam Drebben | |
| Jim Broadbent | ... | Harry Aitken | |
| Matt Day | ... | John Reed | |
| Michael McKean | ... | William Christy Cabanne | |
| Colm Feore | ... | D.W. Griffith | |
| Alexa Davalos | ... | Teddy Sampson | |
| Anthony Head | ... | William Benton (as Anthony Stewart Head) | |
| Kyle Chandler | ... | Raoul Walsh | |
| Saul Rubinek | ... | Eli Morton | |
 |
Cosme Alberto | ... | Abraham Sanchez |
| Damián Alcázar | ... | Gen. Rodolfo Fierro | |
| Pedro Armendáriz Jr. | ... | Don Luis Terrazas (as Pedro Armendáriz) | |
| Fernando Becerril | ... | Priest | |
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Plot Summary
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Plot Synopsis
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Storyline
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 empire's press campaign against him. To counter both of these, 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) becomes interested and sends Frank Thayer (Eion Bailey) with a film crew to develop film reels. Thayer becomes horrified and fascinated by the bandit. He finds an enigmatic individual that is both ghoulishly brutal and charmingly captivating. The resulting film became the first feature length movie, introducing scores of Americans to the true horrors of war that they had never personally seen. Thayer sold the studios on making the film despite their concerns that no one would sit through a movie longer than 1 hour by convincing them that they could raise the ... Written by John Sacksteder <jsackste@bellsouth.net>
Plot Keywords:
revisionist western | man murders a woman | pancho villa | battle | bandit |Taglines:
Lights. Camera. Revolution.Parents Guide:
View content advisory »
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See full technical specs »
Details
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
7 September 2003 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
Pancho Villa See more »Company Credits
Show more on
IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Color:
ColorAspect Ratio:
1.78 : 1
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Written by Gerardo Tamez
Performed by Tuna Normalista de Dan Miguel de Allende, Guanajuayo
Courtesy of Discos Imagen
See more »
Did You Know?
Trivia
WILHELM SCREAM: At 8:56 when Frank Thayer (Eion Bailey) is looking through his binoculars at a Federale being killed by thrown dynamite. See more »Goofs
At the beginning of the film, Pancho Villa makes a remark about Charlie Chaplin. This scene takes place sometime between the end of 1913 and the beginning of 1914. Chaplin made his screen debut in January 1914. In any case, there's no chance that Pancho Villa would have known Chaplin's films, considering that at that time (1914) the future star was just only another Keystone employee. See more »Soundtracks
Tierra MestizaWritten by Gerardo Tamez
Performed by Tuna Normalista de Dan Miguel de Allende, Guanajuayo
Courtesy of Discos Imagen
See more »
Every hero is guilty of some atrocities, and Pancho Villa was no exception. Antonio Banderas delivers a convincing performance as a complicated man who had the brilliance to use the majesty of his own personality to help finance a peasant revolution in Mexico.
As docudramas go, this one is very well balanced ... it reveals the darker side of a legend, the people who tried to manipulate him, and the people he manipulated. Although the original film, the making of which is the heart of this story, has been lost to the ages, it is nonetheless a moving story.
How much is history and how much is Hollywood? Who can say? All I know is that I was more impressed than I expected to be, and more than just being entertained and educated, I was given a lot of food for thought. I sincerely hope that a Spanish language version of this will be available so that the people of Mexico can learn a different version of his story than the one that is in the books in their schools.
This was two hours of my life that I'm glad I spent in front of the screen, and I thank everyone involved for the experience. It is not the best movie I've seen this year, nor will it ever be on my Top Ten list, but it *IS* a very good example of what cinema *SHOULD* be, and all too often is not ... a thought provoking drama that tells a slightly different story than the one we thought we knew.