Le trésor de Pancho Villa

Disappointing film.

This film fails to deliver across every aspect, the characters are unappealing, the visuals are flat and lifeless (at least the version I saw), the acting is completely dialled in (excluding Winters, who still seems a little disinterested) and the audio is blah.

The worst part is the actual story....deliver gold....that's pretty much it.

Save your time, after writing this I'm not sure why I gave it a 4?

The Treasure of Pancho Villa is directed by George Sherman and adapted to screenplay by Niven Busch from a story written by J. Robert Bren and Gladys Atwater. It stars Rory Calhoun, Gilbert Roland and Shelley Winters. Music is by Leith Stevens and cinematography by William Snyder.

It's 1915, Mexico, and two adventurers are in the throes of revolutionary greed, loyalties and plain stubbornness...

It's all rather dull, really, a film not without a good action quotient, yet it drags itself through the slumber with weak characterisations. Winters is shoehorned into the pic as a sort of love interest, but ultimately her character achieves nothing more than under developed dressage, while Calhoun and Roland are saddled with some dire passages of chatter that come off as weak willed time filler. There's some sturdy machismo on show, especially when Calhoun lets fly with his Lewis Machine Gun, the location photography at Morelos (Technicolor/SuperScope) engages the eyes, and the last hurrah battle excites, but this is one that quickly fades from memory, sadly. By this point even the buzzards have had enough... 5/10

In this off-beat tale, Calhoun is an American mercenary that hires himself and his machine gun out to Villas band of revolutionary rebels. There's plenty of action, as the old west meets modern times. Story moves at a nice pace and the cast featurning Calhoun, Roland, and a pre-cellulite Winters make this a worthwhile view.

Great film for Gilbert Roland fans. He goes the full nine yards in sartorial fetishism. The thigh-high multi- buckled leather boots, the narrow wrist thongs to emphasise his thewed hirsute forearms, the double flap-pocketed and epauletted safari shirt diagonally crossed with a bullet-laden bandoleer, the mandatory trouser belt above the matching holster belt (if the revolution succeeds, gringo, everyone in "May-he-co" will be able to dress like theece). This ensemble is topped off with the classical Gilbertian contest between his moustache and his cheroot as to which was thinner. In this period he starred in any film in which he appeared notwithstanding his actual billing which was dictated by him being Mexican rather than WASP(apart of course from his waist).

Yes, it's true. There is a 1950's Coca-Cola sign atop a building in this Western movie. About 5 minutes into the movie, Rory Calhoun and some Mexicans rob a bank and there, behind them atop one of the buildings, is a 1950's time period Coca-Cola sign visible for all to see. I checked the history of Coca-Cola signs and find this one was not a style until the late 1940's and, since the movie was made in 1955, it is obviously not an original 1914-1915 time period sign (which is when the movie was supposed to take place). So one wonders who was in charge of the scenery for this Western.

Otherwise, the Western is good. Calhoun plays a mercenary who is fighting for Pauncho Villa and helping the cause to raise money for guns and ammunition. Roland is one of Villa's main men who is responsible for delivery of the gold they steal to Villa. Winters, as lovely as ever, is a school teacher who wants to fight for the cause because she believes in it.

The gold gets stolen off the train and is taken by mule train to where it is to be delivered to Villa. But Villa is not there when they arrive and Calhoun wants the gold for himself. Then it becomes a struggle between him and Roland.

There's plenty of action and definitely a very good plot. The acting by the stars is good and believable. It's a Western certainly worth watching--despite the Coca-Cola sign.