Pancho Villa [El Desafio de Pancho Villa] *½ (1971, Telly Savalas, Clint Walker, Chuck Connors, Anne Francis ) – Classic Movie Review 6346

An exciting train-crunching station shootout climax helps to save director Eugenio [Gene] Martin’s too often mundane and dreary 1971 paella Western from total tedium.

And so do the star cast of Telly Savalas as Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, Clint Walker as his sidekick Scotty and Chuck Connors as a polo-playing military pawn, Colonel Wilcox, and Anne Francis as Flo. When Villa and Scotty are double-crossed in an arms deal, they hit back with a raid on a US Cavalry fort.

There is plenty of action too, with lots of loud gunfights. But the production values are low and the script is so low key and under-developed as to seem virtually non-existent. The original story is by director Eugenio [Gene] Martin.

The screen-writer is Julian Zimet but the original screenplay credit to Julian Halevy was a blacklist pseudonym. Pancho Villa is billed as ‘The only man to invade the U.S.A.’

Also in the cast are Ángel del Pozo, José Maria Prada, Luis Dávila, Mónica Randall, Antonio Casas, Alberto Dalbés, Barta Barri, Eduardo Calvo and Ben Tatar.

It is shot by Alejandro Ulloa, produced by Bernard Gordon, and scored by Antón García Abril, with Gregorio Sacristán as the production supervisor.

It is filmed in Spain at the Estudios Madrid 70 and Guadix, Granada, Andalucía.

Savalas was also involved with the same production team’s A Town Called Bastard (1971) and Horror Express (1972).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6346

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