She Came to the Valley

Skip the movie. It's a really poor adaptation of a darn good book. Read it.

I first saw this thing several years ago on cable at 3 in the morning. One viewing of this dud will show you why it was on at 3 in the morning. Director Albert Band specialized in cheap Italian westerns in the '60s, and this has the look, feel and sound of one. Only the fact that it was shot in English in Texas, instead of in Italian in Spain, distinguishes it from the stinkers that Band put out back then. His filmmaking skill haven't improved, either. What this film actually looks like is a home movie on a slightly bigger-than-average budget (for a home movie, that is). For some reason Band was able to attract a pretty decent cast, but he doesn't do anything with them. Scott Glenn looks embarrassed, as well he should be, you get the feeling from his "performance" that he wishes he were somewhere else. Freddy Fender, while a good singer, overacts outrageously as Pancho Villa. Ronee Blakeley, another country singer, is a bit better as a pioneer woman caught up in the swirling atmosphere of the Texas/Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution early in this century. It's a good premise, but Band isn't good enough of a director, and the budget is much too low, to do anything interesting with it. A couple of haphazard gun fights and a few flimsy huts set on fire, are just about it for the "action" in the picture. There's a lot of talk, most of which has been said in countless westerns before it and a lot of which makes no sense at all, the photography is poor, the sound is awful, and it apparently was edited with hedge clippers. If you're a fan of Blakeley, Fender or Glenn, don't waste your time on this dud. If you're a western fan, don't waste your time on this dud. If you have seen every movie ever made in the history of mankind except this one, don't waste your time on this dud. Poor in all departments. Avoid it like the plague.

SHE CAME TO THE VALLEY has certainly a bad pedigree. It's Scott Glenn's lowest rated movie (4,3), it was filmed in 1976 but wasn't released until 1979, on Wikipedia it's not even clear the genre which this belongs and nearly all the other reviews give 1s and 2s. Last November I finally saw it and it's even worse than MAN OF THE CURSED VALLEY with Ty Hardin which is.hard to do!

Pat and Willy Westall (played by Dean Stockwell and Ronee Blakey) are poor and decide to move their family from Oklahoma to Texas. However along the way they meet drifter Bill Lester (Glenn) that persuades them to move to the valley: after a while we find out that this drifter is a supporter of the Pancho Villa revolution, and also a gun runner for Villa. Soon after the family gets involved in a dispute between the government soldiers and Pancho Villa's men and when Bill ends captured it's up to Willy to convince Villa to free him but at this point who cares?

To say that this movie is bad it would just be the tip of the iceberg. It's glacially slow, with the plots that drags on and on and on only to make the viewer enraged at the screen. Second, at the beginning Pat is hit on the head by a wooden box and still can walk on his crutches: with a blow caused by a wooden box, he should have at least died in a matter of days for consequences of the hit on the brain region. Third, despite is set during the Pancho Villa revolution it's incredibly uninvolving with characters that mostly talk, talk and talk and cinematography so cheap that is almost always dark. Fourth, the acting is incredibly lazy by all except by Glenn who perhaps tried but then after a while he adjusted to the movie's awfulness.

Fifth, and it's probably worst than the aforementioned problems, it doesn't even know what genre it tries to be. First it looks like a drama, then it looks like a western, then it looks like a movie set during the revolution. I found this incredibly confusing and sloppy.

Overall, probably one of the dullest movies I ever saw recently (including also THE BROKEN KEY and THE PASSENGER). I won't even recommend it to bad movie fans because it's not even worth making fun of, it's so tiring and uninvolving that it nearly gave me a migraine.

With good cast (Stockwell, Glenn, and Blakely) and singer freddy Fender playing Pancho Villa, this got to be a intresting film, but it isn't. Stockwell and Blakely plays a couple who lives in Texas, but Pancho Villa and Glenn effect their lives. Glenn gives a very deadpan performance, as if he didn't want to be in this. Fender chews up the role as Villa, but telly Savalas did it better in the 1971 film. The title song is sunged by Fender. The film seems to be on several diffrent video labels, so they must be a copyright problem or something. The seems to be re-done as the US subtitles (on Mexican dialogue) look like it was on video optics.

A very poorly-made film....not even up to straight-to-video standards. In spite of that, the actors do their darndest to put the story across. Sometimes they try too hard, I'm afraid, and I wince at the overacting. Scott Glenn, however, stays above the fray. He really does a fine job with his character. And the story drew me in as the film progressed, and I began to overlook the obvious flaws. By the time the film was finished, I realized it was just an old-fashioned western...and there isn't anything wrong with that, is there? Still, hard to believe this film was made in 1977. It has a very 1957 feel to it. It should only be sold or rented for 1957 prices, too.