Product Details

• Actors: Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Robert Blake, Susan Clark, Barry Sullivan
• Directors: Abraham Polonsky
• Writers: Abraham Polonsky, Harry Lawton
• Producers: Jennings Lang, Philip A. Waxman
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Goodtimes Home Video
• VHS Release Date: March 5, 1998
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000065MX
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,530 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enigmatic and Noble Western, March 6, 2003

By 

gobirds2 (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here [VHS] (VHS Tape)

1969's TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE is a forgotten but great film. Robert Blake is excellent as the Paiute Indian, Willie Boy, who is the object of a manhunt for a killing he committed in self-defense. The press gets hold of the story and turns it around into an Indian upraising circa 1909. President Taft is the object of the uprising on his trip out west according to the press. Robert Redford, the sheriff leading a posse knows better as he attempts to bring in Blake alive. It is a great study on misinformation by the press and racism. The direction by Abraham Polonsky methodically unfolds this simple yet powerful tale and remains captivating throughout. Conrad Hall's starkly beautiful cinematography enhances the solemn energy of this parable-like tale. Robert Redford, Robert Blake and Katharine Ross all give sincere performances. There is a strange enigmatic quality between the relationships of Blake and Ross and Blake and Redford. There is the hunter and the hunted contrasted against the loss of personal freedoms for a way of life and the loss of the very landscape unto which the story unfolds. Both Redford and Blake remain stoic characters but each manages to give a glimpse of humanity as they exude an aura of their true feelings for a way of life forever lost. They must either accept or perish in that change in one last noble gesture.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A quietly great western., September 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A beautiful western by Polonsky after his long exile from Hollywood. Redford is solid as a young sheriff trying to live up to his dead father's reputation, forced by politicians and the press to pursue a formidable Willie and his new bride across the California desert. Despite the spectacular cinematography and the grim determination of both the hunter and the hunted, this movie lingers in your memory because there is a brooding melancholy that seems to permeate every frame. It's as if both protagonists realize that their era and way of life were vanishing before their very eyes, even as they are forced to play out the final strings of their brutal endgame.

5.0 out of 5 stars RUNNING OUT OF SOUVENIRS, November 20, 2007

By 

Daniel S. "Daniel" (Geneva, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here [VHS] (VHS Tape)

***** 1969. Adapted from Harry Lawton's Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, this film was written and directed by Abraham Polonsky. A brand new zone 2 DVD of it is now available at Amazon.fr in a pristine copy. Texas, 1909. American Indian Willie Boy is hunted by sheriff Robert Redford in the desert. Both will lose there their last illusions. One can either enjoy this western as a powerful drama or appreciate the way Abraham Polonsky comments one of the rare American myths. A masterpiece that needs to be seen at least twice to be fully understood.