Viva Villa! (1934)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Jack Conway

Writers:

Edgecumb Pinchon (book) and
O.B. Stade (book) ...

Release Date:

27 April 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Western

Tagline:

...TOO BIG FOR HOLLYWOOD...it was dramatized in the heart of Mexico, with a cast of thousands!

Plot:

In this fictionalized biography, young Pancho Villa takes to the hills after killing an overseer in revenge for his father's death...

Plot Keywords:

Mexico | Army | Revenge | General | Pancho Villa

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Wallace Beery	...	Pancho Villa
Leo Carrillo	...	Sierra
Fay Wray	...	Teresa
Donald Cook	...	Don Felipe de Castillo
Stuart Erwin	...	Jonny Sykes
Henry B. Walthall	...	Francisco Madero
Joseph Schildkraut	...	Gen. Pascal
Katherine DeMille	...	Rosita Morales (as Katherine de Mille)
George E. Stone	...	Emilio Chavito
Phillip Cooper	...	Pancho Villa as a boy
David Durand	...	Bugle boy
Frank Puglia	...	Pancho Villa's father
Ralph Bushman	...	Wallace Calloway (reporter) (as Francis X. Bushman Jr.)
Adrian Rosley	...	Alphonso Mendoza
Henry Armetta	...	Alfredo Mendosa

Runtime:

115 min | USA:110 min (Turner library print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #1105, 2 May 1935 for re-release)

Filming Locations:

Chihuahua, Mexico

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Much of the footage originally shot by Howard Hawks is said to have been lost in a plane crash. However, Hawks claimed that most of the location footage (except battle scenes) was his.

Quotes:

Jonny Sykes: [typing] Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of Jonny Sykes.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in This Side of Heaven (1934)

Soundtrack:

Artist's Life, Op.316

Should Have Been Viva Madero

I'm still not clear on how MGM got away with this film. Pancho Villa had only been dead for 10 years and his famous raid on Columbus, New Mexico almost 20 years. Surely not enough time for people to have forgotten Villa or what he did.

But the most famous thing he did, raid into the USA and provide a pretext for intervention into Mexican affairs, is completely forgotten by this film. The Villa we see here is a lovable lug of a guy, a typical Wallace Beery part who gets his social conscience awakened by Francisco Madero and gives up banditry to become a revolutionary.

If you're a big fan of Wallace Beery and liked him in such films as Min and Bill and Treasure Island than Viva Villa is simply an extension of the characters he played there.

Actually I think the most interesting character in the film is that of Francisco Madero. Henry B. Walthall's performance is the best and I wish Walthall had starred in a film where he was the central character. Madero was as you see in the film a man of high ideals, betrayed and assassinated by his supporters. But it was hardly Pancho Villa who took vengeance on his betrayers. After long time Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz was overthrown in 1911 and then Madero assassinated in 1912, Mexico fell apart much like the former Yugoslavia did almost 20 years ago. Civil war raged there for a generation. Eventually it united under the PRI party which elected all of its presidents until Vicente Fox.

I've never really liked this film, it stray so far from the facts it's laughable. The players go through their familiar roles and it's a good cast that Howard Hawks later Jack Conway put through their paces. Of course the most famous story coming out of this film is about Lee Tracy getting blotto and going out on a balcony and raining on some Mexican soldiers. Got him fired from the film and Stu Erwin got the break and Tracy's part as the newspaper reporter who popularizes Villa.

If in fact you consider it a break Erwin got to be in Viva Villa.