Customer Reviews

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

***** 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.

Even though the Native American characters are killed off by the end of the picture, we can still see the changes that they have to make in order to adapt to the dominate society. Robert Blake and Katharine Ross's chatacters chose not to adapt and there for had to die. That is typical Hollywood, but it is the true experiance of the Native people of the United States, adapt or die.

An Unusual role for Robert Redford but one he plays very well with a rugged style as a tough sherrif who wants to live up to his father`s great reputation leads a massive manhunt for Wille, an Indian who killed in self defense who now with his girlfriend must stay one step ahead of Redford & Company relentless pursuit An Entertaing western with a strong message does stagger during the halfway mark of the film but the ending delivers with a classic shootout. Redford manages to pull off a convincing macho performance.

While I find this to be a decent yet minor film in the Redford cannon, my real problem is that the distributor (Good Times Video) is using a picture of Redford from "Out of Africa" on the box cover instead of a photo from "Willie Boy"... Hopefully when the DVD is released they will fix this embarassing oversight.