Poncho villa how to#
Poncho villa movie#

Poncho villa how to#

The director told Pancho Villa where and how to fight his battles. The Hollywood crew went down to Mexico and joined Villa’s guerrilla force. In 1914, a Hollywood motion picture company signed a contract with Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa in which he agreed to fight his revolution according to the studio’s scenario in return for $25,000. Here’s how the agreement he reached with the Mutual Film Company is usually described: What made Villa’s contract so odd, though, was its terms, or at least the terms it was said to have contained. And there were obvious advantages in controlling the way in which the newsreel men chose to portray the Revolution, particularly for Villa, whose main bases were close to the U.S. Those customers expected to see some news alongside the melodramas and comedy shorts that were the staples of early cinema. Cinema was growing rapidly in popularity attendance at nickelodeons had doubled since 1908, and an estimated 49 million tickets were sold each week in the U.S.

Poncho villa movie#

Under the terms of this agreement, it is said, the rebels undertook to fight their revolution for the benefit of the movie cameras in exchange for a large advance, payable in gold.Įven at this early date, there was nothing especially surprising about Pancho Villa (or anyone else) inking a deal that allowed cameras access to the areas that they controlled. Specifically, it is remembered for the contract Villa was supposed to have signed with a leading American newsreel company in January 1914. In all the blood and chaos that followed the overthrow of Porfirio Diaz, who had been dictator of Mexico since 1876, what was left of the central government in Mexico City found itself fighting several contending rebel forces-most notably the Liberation Army of the South, commanded by Emiliano Zapata, and the Chihuahua-based División del Norte, led by the even more celebrated bandit-rebel Pancho Villa–and the three-cornered civil war that followed was notable for its unrelenting savagery, its unending confusion and (north of the Rio Grande, at least) its unusual film deals. The first casualty of war is truth, they say, and nowhere was that more true than in Mexico during the revolutionary period between 19. But did the Mexican rebel really sign a contract agreeing to fight his battles according to the ideas of a Hollywood director?

Pancho Villa, seen here in a still taken from Mutual’s exclusive 1914 film footage.