Villa Rides *** (1968, Yul Brynner, Robert Mitchum, Maria Grazia Buccella, Charles Bronson, Herbert Lom) – Classic Movie Review 9676

An oddly hairy Yul Brynner struggles against his miscasting as the Mexican revolutionary bandit Pancho Villa (played by Wallace Beery in 1934’s Viva Villa!, by Rodolfo Hoyos Jr in 1958’s Villa!!, and by Telly Savalas in 1972’s Pancho Villa) in director Buzz Kulik’s handsome but meandering 1968 Western action thriller Villa Rides!.

The movie gives plenty of screen time to Robert Mitchum’s equally meandering, laconic, buccaneering Texas gunrunner and airman Lee Arnold and Charles Bronson as his amigo Rodolfo Fierro, and that is good, but it still remains vaguely unsatisfactory.

The screenplay should be top-notch but credited co-writers Robert Towne and Sam Peckinpah end up providing one of their lesser efforts, based on a novel by William Douglas Lansford, and director Buzz Kulik lacks the vision or strength to bring it all together, in a movie not seeming to care enough about the legend or the period.

It’s a great shame that Peckinpah didn’t direct, and that his original screenplay was not used, but both Mitchum and Bronson are both real assets to the still interesting piece.

Peckinpah wrote the original screenplay and was to direct, but Brynner disliked the script because it made Pancho Villa – who gave standing orders to shoot all prisoners – ‘look like a bad guy’. Peckinpah was fired and his script was rewritten by Towne to conform to Brynner’s idea of Villa. Sergio Leone then turned down the direction, because he disliked Brynner’s casting.

Bronson is oddly hairy too. It is the first movie where he appears with his trademark moustache.

Mitchum did not get along with Brynner and said he could not understand why Bronson was famous.

It was filmed in Spain, Mexico and Paramount Studios Hollywood. Mitchum was in Europe for three consecutive movies, followed by going to Italy for Anzio and London for Secret Ceremony.

Also in the cast are Maria Grazia Buccella, Herbert Lom, Alexander Knox, Fernando Rey, José María Prada, Jill Ireland (as Girl in Restaurant), Robert Viharo, Frank Wolff, Diana Lorys, Robert Carricart, Regina de Julián, Andrés Monreal, Antoñito Ruiz, Julio Peña, John Ireland as Barbershop Client (uncredited) and José Maria Prada.

Jill Ireland divorced David McCallum, with whom she had three sons, in 1967 and in 1968 married Bronson. John Ireland is no relation. It is the first film together of Bronson and Jill Ireland.

Turkish singer Seyyal Taner, who plays a Mexican guerrilla girl, was later notorious for scoring nil points in the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9676

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