Viva Villa!

Wallace Beery does fine here as the legendary Mexican bandit-cum-patriot Pancho Villa. He pretty much pleases himself as he and his men maraud the countryside imposing their own unique sort of revolutionary justice. Then he meets the sophisticated democrat Madero (Henry B. Walthall) who dreams of a country free of European domination, but he wants one that is peaceful and law-abiding, so Pancho isn’t a natural fit for the task. After a few jitters, though, he agrees to put his men under the command of General Pascal (Joseph Schildkraut) and next thing there’s an abdication and a new man in what is now the presidential palace. Content that all is well, Pancho returns to his old ways and is only just saved from the firing squad by an intervention from the President, though instead he is banished to Texas. It’s when he is awakened there with some shocking news that he returns south with vengeance on his mind. The whole thing is loosely based on the real men that feature, but if you want an history lesson then this isn’t the place. It’s an out-and-out adventure movie that centres around a character actor who frequently looks like he’s about to start to giggle, and there are a couple of decent supporting roles from Fay Wray as “Theresa”, Stuart Elwin as the newshound Jonny and the scene-stealing George E. Stone who just simply refuses to draw a bull on anything, favouring a pigeon instead. It’s fairly action-packed and it does offer a slight nod to the principled sentiments of democracy and freedom, but essentially it’s just a lively outing for Beery.