Pancho Villa in popular culture explained

Pancho Villa was famous during the Mexican Revolution and has remained so, holding a fairly mythical reputation in Mexican consciousness, but not officially recognized in Mexico until long after his death.^[1] As the "Centaur from the North" he was considered a threat to property and order on both sides of the border, feared, and revered, as a modern Robin Hood.

Pancho Villa remains a controversial figure in the United States. USA Today reported, "A terrorist in 1916, a tourist attraction in 2011. ... On Jan. 8, 1916, 18 U.S. businessmen were massacred by Villa's men in a train robbery in northern Mexico. It was not the first or last of Villa's atrocities; he personally shot a priest who begged for clemency for his villagers, as well as a woman who blamed him for her husband's death."^[2]

In films, video, and television

Villa appeared as himself in the films Life of Villa (1912),^[3] Barbarous Mexico (1913),^[4] With General Pancho Villa in Mexico (1913), The Life of General Villa (1914)^[5] and Following the Flag in Mexico (1916).^[6]

Films based on Pancho Villa have appeared since the early years of the Revolution and have continued to be made into the twenty-first century. Hollywood's role in the shaping of the image of Villa, the Mexican Revolution, and U.S. public opinion has been the subject of a scholarly study.^[7] The 1934 biopic Viva Villa! was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.^{[8] [9]} In 2003, HBO broadcast And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, with Antonio Banderas as Villa that focuses on the making of the film The Life of General Villa.^{[10] [11]}

Actors who have portrayed Villa include:

• Raoul Walsh (1912, 1914) The Life of General Villa^[12]
• Wallace Beery (1917) Patria^[13]
• George Humbert (1918) Why America Will Win^[14]
• Wallace Beery (1934) Viva Villa!,^[15] with Phillip Cooper (Pancho Villa as a boy)^[16]
• Juan F. Triana (1935) El Tesoro de Pancho Villa
• Domingo Soler (1936) Vámonos con Pancho Villa^[17]
• Maurice Black (1937) Under Strange Flags^{[18] [19]}
• Leo Carrillo (1949) Pancho Villa Returns^[20]
• Pedro Armendáriz (1950, 1957, 1960 twice)
• Alan Reed (1952) Viva Zapata!^[21]
• Victor Alcocer (1955) El siete leguas^[22]
• Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. (1958) Villa!!^[23]
• Rafael Campos (1959) Have Gun - Will Travel; Season 3, Episode 6 (Pancho)
• José Elías Moreno (1967) El Centauro Pancho Villa
• Ricardo Palacios (1967) Los siete de Pancho Villa
• Yul Brynner (1968) Villa Rides
• Telly Savalas (1972) Pancho Villa
• Heraclio Zepeda (1973) Reed, México insurgente
• Antonio Aguilar (1974) La Muerte de Pancho Villa
• Héctor Elizondo (1976) (TV)
• Freddy Fender (1977) She Came to the Valley
• José Villamor (1980) Viva México (TV)
• Jorge Reynoso (1982)
• Gaithor Brownne (1985) Blood Church
• Guillermo Gil (1987) Senda de Gloria (TV series)
• Pedro Armendáriz Jr. (1989) Old Gringo
• Mike Moroff (1992) The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal, "Mexico, March 1916",
• Antonio Aguilar (1993) La sangre de un valiente
• Alonso Echánove (1993) By Our Own Correspondent
• Jesús Ochoa (1995) Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda
• Carlos Roberto Majul (1999) Ah! Silenciosa
• Peter Butler (2000)
• Antonio Banderas (2003) And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (HBO)
• Alejandro Calva (2009) Chico Grande

More films about Villa:

• Pancho Villa's Shadow (1933) by Miguel Contreras Torres
• Deadliest Warrior, Spike TV's hit show, featured Pancho Villa in a match-up against Chief Crazy Horse (2011)
• Wild Roses, Tender Roses (2012), based on the novel The Friends of Pancho Villa, by James Carlos Blake

In literature

• In Mariano Azuela's novel The Underdogs, anti-federal soldiers talk about him as an archetype of an anti-authoritarian bandit: "Villa, indomitable lord of the sierra, the eternal victim of all governments... Villa tracked, hunted down like a wild beast... Villa the reincarnation of the old legend; Villa as Providence, the bandit, that passes through the world armed with the blazing torch of an ideal: to rob the rich and give to the poor. It was the poor who built up and imposed a legend about him which Time itself was to increase and embellish as a shining example from generation to generation."^[24] However, a little later, one character distrusts the rumors: "Anastasio Montañéz questioned the speaker more particularly. It was not long before he realized that all this high praise was hearsay and that not a single man in Natera's army had ever laid eyes on Villa."
• Whatever the reality behind the legends, even after his defeat Villa remained a powerful character still lurking in the Mexican mind. In 1950 Octavio Paz wrote, in his morose but thoughtful book on the Mexican soul The Labyrinth of Solitude, "The brutality and uncouthness of many of the revolutionary leaders has not prevented them from becoming popular myths. Villa still gallops through the north, in songs and ballads; Zapata dies at every popular fair... It is the Revolution, the magical word, the word that is going to change everything, that is going to bring us immense delight and a quick death."
• El águila y la serpiente by Martín Luis Guzmán (1930); it "can be considered as [Guzmán's] reminiscences of Villa and his movement.^[25]
• The Gringo Bandit (1947), by William Hopson.
• The Friends of Pancho Villa (1996), by James Carlos Blake.
• In the Southern Victory Series novels and by Harry Turtledove, Doroteo Arango is a candidate for the Radical Liberal Party in the 1915 Confederate States Presidential Election, representing Chihuahua, which the CSA purchased in 1881 and retained following the Second Mexican War fought between the CSA and the United States. He went on to be soundly defeated in the election to the Whig candidate and incumbent Vice President, Gabriel Semmes.
• In the alternate history short story "Compadres" by S.M. Stirling collected in the anthology Alternate Generals II (2002) edited by Harry Turtledove, The American territory of annexation following the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 included Chihuahua. Decades later, Pancho Villa would become a Senator of the State of Chihuahua and is later the running mate of Theodore Roosevelt in the 1904 presidential election.^[26]

In music

• "Pancho Villa", song by Billy Walker^[27]
• "Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance", opera by Graham Reynolds^[28]
• "Pancho and Lefty", a song by Townes Van Zandt about a fictional bandit named Pancho, loosely based on Pancho Villa
• "Ride With Me Gringo", song by Riders In The Sky
• "Viva Pancho Villa", song by Hoyt Axton

Notes and References

1. Living La Vida Grande . Sherman . Scott . Dissent . Winter 2000 . 3 July 2013 .
2. News: Pancho Villa now celebrated in New Mexico . . 3 September 2011.
3. Book: Fisher, Austin . Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, Violence and Popular Italian Cinema . . 6 February 2014 . 124 . 9780857737700.
4. Book: Damacio Tovares, Raúl . Manufacturing the Gang: Mexican American Youth Gangs on Local Television News . . 2002 . 43 . 9780313318276.
5. Uncovering the Truth Behind the Myth of Pancho Villa, Movie Star . Dash . Mike . 6 November 2012 . 29 April 2018 . Smithsonian Mag.
6. Book: Gevinson, Alan . Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960 . . . 1997 . 343 . 9780520209640.
7. Margarita de Orellana, Filming Pancho Villa: How Hollywood Shaped the Mexican Revolution: North American Cinema and Mexico, 1911–1917. New York: Verso, 2007.
8. Web site: Do the wrong thing: 90 years, 90 movies that should have been nominated for Best Picture . 28 February 2018 . 5 May 2018 . . Onion, Inc..
9. Ciampaglia . Dante A. . Schiling . Mary Kaye . All 90 Best Picture Oscar Winners, Ranked: Part 3—30 to 1 . 23 February 2018 . 5 May 2018 . Newsweek.
10. Gallo . Phil . And Starring Pancho Villa as himself . 4 September 2003 . 5 May 2018 . . Penske Business Media, LLC..
11. News: Lloyd . Robert . Pancho Villa, the reel story . 6 September 2003 . 5 May 2018 . Los Angeles Times.
12. News: Walsh and Villa . 10 August 2013 . 5 May 2018 . Los Angeles Times.
13. Book: Butterfield, Beldon . Mexico Behind the Mask: A Narrative, Past and Present . . 31 December 2012 . 76 . 9781612344263.
14. Book: García Riera, Emilio . Emilio García Riera . México visto por el cine extranjero . Ediciones Era . 1987 . 18 . 9789684111639.
15. Book: Gaytán, Marie Sarita . ¡Tequila!: Distilling the Spirit of Mexico . . 12 November 2014 . 57 . 9780804793100.
16. Book: Pallot, James . The Movie Guide . registration . . 1995 . 961 . 9780399519147.
17. Book: International Motion Picture Almanac . Quigley Publications . 1947 . 381.
18. Book: Pitts, Michael R. . Hollywood and American History: A Filmography of Over 250 Motion Pictures Depicting U.S. History . registration . . 1984 . 332 . 9780899501321.
19. Book: The BFI Companion to the Western . 1988 . 232. 9780233983325. Institute. British Film. Atheneum .
20. Book: Rowan, Terry . Character-Based Film Series . 2016 . . 67 . Part 2 . 9781365021305.
21. Book: Reed . Alan . Alan Reed . Ohmart . Ben . Yabba Dabba Doo!: The Alan Reed Story . BearManor Media . 2009 . 96 . 9781593933135.
22. Book: Mi primer diccionario histórico de Coahuila y de las bellas artes: Diccionario de la lengua española para uso escolar . Editorial del Valle de Cándamo . 2004 . 114 . 9789687487090.
23. Book: Rodriguez, Clara E. . Heroes, Lovers, and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood . . 2004 . 158 . 9780195335132.
24. Book: Azuela, Mariano . Mariano Azuela

    . Mariano Azuela . 1915 . Los de Abajo . Chapter XX.

25. Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, p. 832.
26. Web site: Uchronia: Compadres.
27. https://www.cancioneros.com/lyrics/song/1222271/pancho-villa-billy-walker Pancho Villa by Billy Walker – lyrics
28. Putting the legend of Pancho Villa to song