In an El Paso hotel room on the fifth day of January 1914, Pancho Villa came to terms with a Hollywood studio to make a silent movie about the role of the bandit-turned-rebel in the Mexican Revolution.
No one can say for sure whose idea it was to shoot the “Centaur of the North” and his peasant army in action or how much the “star” was paid. Villa may have approached director D.W. Griffith instead of the other way around because he grasped the importance of the new medium as a propaganda tool.
The money meant as much or more to Pancho, who never seemed to have enough to feed, clothe and arm his troops. According to one story, he received a lump-sum payment of $25,000, which is highly unlikely, while another claims the contract entitled him to $5,000 in gold coins for every month the movie was in production.
As soon as D.W. Griffith learned Villa had signed on the dotted line, he summoned 27 year old Raoul Walsh to his office. In Griffith’s legion of underpaid assistants, the former stage actor was the only one who had spent any time in Mexico. Based upon this bit of personal trivia, Griffith assigned the Pancho project to a novice who had yet to direct his first frame of film.
Later that day, young Walsh boarded the famous “Sunset Limited” for the express train ride to Texas’ westernmost town. The parting piece of advice from the studio executive, who saw him off at Union Station, was: “Think up a story that the general will like and for God’s sake never refer to him as a bandit.”
A trusted rebel lieutenant met Walsh at the El Paso depot and hustled him into a waiting car for the long drive over rough roads to Villa’s headquarters in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The fresh-faced visitor was warmly received by his host, who exchanged pleasantries before getting down to business.
“The general wants to see the money,” the lieutenant gruffly informed the American. Walsh placed a satchel of twenty-dollar gold pieces on the table and leaned back in his chair to watch Villa inspect the contents.
Assured of Pancho’s satisfaction with the payment, Walsh reviewed the script he had scribbled on the way from California. He sought to emphasize Villa’s early life and the crimes committed by the federales against members of his family before filling the silent screen with live-action sequences.
Even before the translator passed on Villa’s approval, Walsh could tell from the pleased expression on his face that he liked the plan for the motion picture. He could also tell the Mexican leader understood more English than he ever let on.
“He wishes to congratulate you,” the translator said. “The general says he will be pleased for you to make the story, and he will take good care of you because if you were killed, there will be no picture for the world to see.”
Walsh and his German cameraman filmed the villistas’ brief but bloody fight for Durango, which fell so fast the moviemaker felt forced to recreate the event. To give the mock battle a touch of realism, Villa ordered his reluctant soldiers to put on the uniforms of dead federales.
Their bellies full, their ranks more than replenished by fresh recruits and armed to the teeth with rifles, pistols and machine-guns bought with Griffith’s gold, the peasant force began the 500-mile march to Mexico City. To Walsh’s disappointment, their triumphant taking of the capital on Feb. 17, 1914 was anti-climactic with most federales having long since deserted their posts.
Walsh devoted three days filming interior scenes inside Chapultepec Castle before packing up his equipment and loading a trio of trucks for the teeth-rattling, three-week trek to Juarez. Then it was back to Hollywood for studio scenes with the director portraying a twenty-something Pancho.
After pulling several all-nighters in the editing room, Walsh was ready to show the boss a rough cut of the five-reel flick. “Some of the shots are good and bloody,” Griffith commented in an obvious reference to images of executed federales hanging by their necks from trees. He conceded the censors “may faint” but added he was willing to risk it.
“The Life of General Villa” premiered in New York on May 14, 1914 – four months after Pancho inked the contract. Shown in various major cities under different titles, Walsh’s silent film is believed to have been a box-office success despite the fact that the actual ticket sales were kept secret.
By the time Pancho Villa was ambushed and killed in 1923, Raoul Walsh was making a name for himself behind the camera as one of filmdom’s finest directors. Hopefully he remembered that he owed his start to the most charismatic and colorful figure in the Mexican Revolution.
Don’t bother looking for the Pancho Villa biopic. Like three out of every four films made during the silent era, it has vanished without a trace.
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