Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Kevin Somebody must have had the idea to make this actual historical event (1916 Raid on Columbus, NM, USA) into a farce of a film for the audience's pleasure.It portrays both the American Army and Pancho Villa as bumbling, inept fools. I don't know what Telly Savalas (a huge star at the time) was thinking participating in this film.With a comical, farcical sound track and ridiculous sound effects it is like watching a combination of MASH 4077, Three Stooges and horrible Chop-Sokey martial arts films of the day.It's so bizarre, it's worth watching it to say that you did.

ma-cortes This is a semi-fictional chronicle of the notorious bandit Pancho Villa (Telly Savalas) . It is a witless recounting of Villa's American campaign with broaden focus about action and irony . Villa (Dorotea Arango , 1878-1923) sends his gringo pal (Clint Walker) as gunrunner into US , but he is betrayed . As he encounters every obstacles with MacDermott (Luis Davila) ; besides , there meets his beautiful spouse (Anne Francis). Then , Villa leads his merry men in the famous raid over an American fort after being double-crossed in a weapons deal . Crossing the frontier attacking firstly the checkpoint and bombing the cartel captioning ¨You are entering in United States¨ . Later on , it begins an intense charge over the Columbus headquarter . A cocky and megalomaniac colonel (Chuck Connors) attempts to battle against him .This Spanish/American co-production paints an ironic , cynic portrayal of the famous leader following the exploits of Villa and his men formed by a peasant army into USA territory . The picture ignores the wealth of the authentic history and becomes yet another action/adventure/humor Western and this failed production doesn't deliver what it should . It is an average Western with comedy , tongue-in-cheek , action and plenty of shootouts , gun-play and some moments results to be quite entertaining . This Paella/US Western was regularly directed by Eugenio Martin who made terror films (Horror Express) and more Spaghetti Western (Bounty killer , Requiem for a Gringo and Bad man's river) , among others .This uneven rehash about Pancho villa exploits is partially based on real events , the authentic deeds are the following : For a time Villa,who seemed in line for leadership of Mexico , enjoyed the sympathetic interest of the US government who then dropped Villa and supported his rival , Carranza . Villa's resentment resulted in the vengeance raid on Columbus . Villa slapped the United States in the face by mounting a surprise raid on the town of Columbus,New Mexico,on 9 march 1916, killing eight American soldiers and ten civilians.In retaliation , President Woodrow Wilson sent General Pershing and a Punitive Expedition into Mexico in hot pursuit of Villa.General Pershing's column included the Seventh Cavalry and Apache scouts, chased Villa deep into Mexico , the Americans captured and killed several of Villa's lieutenants but failed to catch the guerrilla leader . Because of Mexican protests , Pershing's command returned to the US.Villa was assassinated in 1923 when gunman ambushed his car .

mgtbltp Well I was avoiding this film for a while, seeing as how I've heard that it was total crap, but since I had gotten a gift card for FYE I picked up the box set Rawhide Season 1, and had a little credit left on the card so when I saw this DVD marked down to $2.99 well, thats a price that I can stomach experimenting with little known films.Pancho Villa, Dir, by Eugenio Martin, stars Telly Savalas as Pancho Villa, Clint Walker as Scotty, in the standard role of the gringo American gunrunner, Chuck Connors as clean freak nut case Col. Wilcox, Anne Francis (who played Altaria in Forbidden Planet) as Flo, and it also has Dan Van Husen and a few of the regular list of SW bit part players.The version I picked up was released by Geneon its runtime is 92 minutes, it has no chapter stops, and no special features. When your expecting total crap your expectations are lower than whale sh*t, so I was actually pleasantly surprised that this turned out to be very watchable. Its supposed to be either humorous or a lighthearted farce rather than a slapstick comedy but with the casting problems and limits of the script it comes out as neither. I guess we all got to remember that this was made post "Trinity is Still My Name" and the time for serious SW's and Zapatas Westerns had passed.Three things though really stand out and they are the quality of the transfer which was widescreen and excellent, secondly, the beautiful cinematography of Alejandro Ulloa which is one of the things that really impressed me when I first saw his work on Corbucci's Companero's, his other work some of you will recognize from The Mercenary, Sonny & Jed, Cry Onion, Providence, and other great SWs and third is the almost star billing for the TRAINS! This film is a train-lovers delight, this is one Zapata Western that really emphasizes the trains, there is some great railroad action footage, including a beginning act that has a locomotive chase, that for me anyway really compensates for the rest of the film who's biggest problem is the miscasting of Savalas as Villa. Savalas sucks basically is about the best you can say about his performance as Villa, he effects no accent whatsoever, but he is still his charming wise-guy persona and he does have some good scenes (like when he's pretending to be a corpse where he doesn't have to talk which was not much of a stretch for him) so you can suspend disbelief.Walker is his hulking self. I think the only memorable time I saw these two together was in "The Dirty Dozen". In this film Walker runs around dressed like a sea captain with insignia cap and blue brass buttoned watch-coat, a strange choice. Chuck Connors plays a misophobic US army Col. Wilcox, but rather than be a strong villain he comes off as more of a nut job. Flo (Anne Francis) has some scenes with her wayward husband Scotty (Walker) which were supposed to be funny but don't quite work, mostly because Walker doesn't have much range as an actor.The town sets and the border custom station/army post look fine, you will recognize La Calahorra station, Colmenar Viejo, & Guadix.This film is unique from other Zapatas in that it covers Villas attack on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1917, long after his glory days were past and that it emphasized his use of railroads with his "Army of The North". It does have a spectacular set piece real head on collision with two steam locomotives, similar to DYS, but without the dynamite, its cool to see real train-wrecks. Nowadays it would all be computer generated effects The score is mostly mariachi music and fits the film well, but it does have Telly sing the ending credit tune which is a hoot, on par with LVC's turn in Captian Apache.Any way this worth getting for $10 or lower.

Poseidon-3 This is an odd little film about infamous Pancho Villa featuring an all Spanish cast except for a quartet of "name" American actors. Savalas (attempting no sort of accent or strong characterization) slides through the film on his unique brand of charm. (He was at or near his height of fame at he time.) He's given a scene to explain why, in this version of the story, Villa is bald, yet in a clip that takes place prior to the shaving, he is bald then, too! He is only effective at all because so many of the rest of the cast are bad. Roman god come to life Walker co-stars as a gunrunner who works alongside Savalas. Sadly, he is covered up by a jaunty captain's hat and a double breasted coat much of the time, so his treasure of a chest is under wraps. Still, his innate charm and handsome face add a lot to this very slight movie. He manages to inject some humor and slyness into his part. Francis has very little to do in her role (and disappears without a trace at some point!), but is attractive. Conners (with his skeletal features and corpse-like lips) plays a mad, driven Army officer who's bent on cleanliness and order at the expense of efficiency. He has a notable scene in which a mess hall is virtually trashed in order to excise one fly. The film is impossible to take seriously and it doubtful that it was intended as such. It's a sort of parodic, satiric take on the genre. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the wit or the money to make much of an impression. The sets look like they wouldn't pass muster on "Bonanza" and the dubbing (in fact all of the sound) is horrible. The music in this film is almost it's worst aspect. There is a highly aggravating theme played by the Mexicans as they enter the U.S. and it is ceaseless in its torture of the viewers' ears. To top it off, there's a hellacious closing credit song sung by Savalas (!) and written by John Cacavas (who did music for "Kojak" and a horde of TV movies.) The film is not very good, but watchable once if little is expected of it.