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TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE has top-notch color photography by Conrad Hall, a thinking man's script that is character driven, and good performances all around by a cast that includes ROBERT REDFORD, ROBERT BLAKE, SUSAN CLARK, BARRY SULLIVAN and KATHARINE ROSS. But it's a lumbering tale that takes a good hour before the dust begins to settle and we get some action along with the character development of both Blake and Redford.

Every scene is painfully slow in getting to the payoff so that the film seems a lot longer than one hour and thirty-six minutes. The first hour is devoted to the manhunt for an Indian killer (Blake) and then the plot involves the arrival of President Taft in 1909 California and the effort to protect him from any kind of assassination attempt.

Redford's role as the reluctant sheriff is never too clear since he's a man of a very few words (a regular Gary Cooper type), so it's up to Blake to carry much of the film and he does. He's terrific as the Indian lad who's trigger happy when the posse starts getting too close.

The last twenty minutes should have been a model of suspense as they close in on Willie Boy, but it's allowed to drag out interminably.

Summing up: Character driven tale had the potential to be a fine western, but badly paced direction of Abraham Polonsky is no help nor is the sluggish script. Film was released after BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID put Redford on the map but was never a big box-office success.

In southern California at the start of the twentieth century, a young indian man gets into a violent dispute over a girl. This triggers a manhunt.

Director Abraham Polonsky was making his comeback to mainstream cinema with this film, eighteen years after being blacklisted by the UnAmerican Activities Committee. He also wrote this screenplay, which strikes a defiant note in favour of the lone hero against the forces of intolerance and repression. It is not too fanciful to see the indians, with their alternative sensibility and distinct code of values, as a metaphor for artists and free thinkers. Minorities are always in danger, suggests the film, from the urge to hound and victimise manifested by some elements in society.

Polonsky skilfully uses the camera to tell his story. We follow the complex movements of the various characters around the fiesta fairground without the need for spoken dialogue. The silent meeting of Coop and Willie tells us everything about these two men, and their mutual rivalry and respect.

The wonderful topography of the Mojave Desert is superbly captured in Panavision. In particular, the showdown on Ruby Mountain offers some gorgeous images. The film's four leads are excellent: Robert Redford is a wise and humane Coop, the sherriff obliged to lead the inappropriate manhunt: Robert Blake is perfect as the nihilistic, elemental Willie: Doctor Elizabeth Arnold is played by Susan Clark, developing nicely the ambivolence of a woman who needs Coop sexually but despises herself for it: Katharine Ross is the spry, athletic Lola, the young indian girl who becomes Willie's 'wife by capture'.

Based on the Willie Boy incident that was one of the most savage chapters in frontier history .Contemporary Western drama set in 1909 , it tells the story of one of the last and violent western manhunt. Set in Joshua Tree , California , about a killing carried by a Paiute Indian , Robert Blake , who murders his bride's father in self-defense , it triggers a non-stop pursuit . Later on, Willie Boy and and his white bride , Katharine Ross , escape and go on the run across the sunny desert . They become the objects of a manhunt by a tough posse led by the reluctant local sheriff , Robert Redford , and his followers : Barry Sullivan , Ned Romero , John Vernon , among others .

Well paced film with bitter irony and stunningly directed by Abraham Polonsky , this was once-blacklisted Polonsky's first movie in 31 years . A thought-provoking and powerful picture , even though the screenplay carries its liberal conscience on its sleeve . Main cast is very good . Robert Blake is awesome as an obstinate Indian presumed guilty of a crime defined by circumstance rather than by fact, he gradually reverts to being an Indian in the archetypally savage sense . A sober Robert Redford gives fine acting , he plays as a reluctant as well as stubborn sheriff who pursues mercilessly Willie . And Katharine Ross is very attractive as the bride who follows to Boy . Support cast is frankly nice such as Susan Clark , Barry Sullivan , John Vernon , Charles McGraw, Robert Lipton and Ned Romero .

Colorful and evocative cinematography by maestro cameraman Conrad L. Hall including wonderful desert outdoors and masterfully photographed . Special mention for the thrilling and suspenseful musical score with atmospheric and strange sounds by Dave Grusin , in Jerry Goldsmith style . Enjoyable production design with marvelous landscapes by two veteran designers : Alexander Golitzen and Henry Burnstead, Hitchcock's ordinary. The motion picture was compellingly directed by Abraham Polonsky, it was made with austere authority , adding a strong allegory about witch-hunting . This was Polonsky's retun to filmmaking after 21 blacklist years since Force of Evil with this excellent contemporary western . The best and most successful movie he directed was the classic film noir "Force of evil" and also wrote the prestigious Body and Soul . Subsequently , he was chased as a member of the communist party . After defying the comittee by refusing to name names , 8Polonsky was pursued , juzged and condemned by the HUAC , once blacklisted he only wrote and directed a few films as Romance of a horsethief and this Tell them willie Boy is here. And wrote some scripts such as I can get it for you wholesale , Madigan , Monsignor, Avalanche express Rating : 7/10. Better than average , well worth watching

After a couple of decades on the blacklist Abraham Polonsky returned to mainstream cinema with a Romeo&Juliet type story. The Mojave Desert don't look a lot like medieval Verona, Italy but the story is the same.

The title role of Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is played by Robert Blake who is a Paiute Indian kid who by their tradition kidnaps the women of his intentions Katherine Ross to make her his bride. It's their way of courtship, but when Ross's dad objects he's accidentally shot and killed by Blake.

Ironically with a good lawyer Blake might have gotten off. But Paiute Indians usually don't get good lawyers and they don't take to confinement. Still this incident might have gone unnoticed but for the fact that the sitting president of the USA in 1909 one William Howard Taft was visiting the area. That brings in the national media and blows up the story.

Robert Redford plays the sheriff charged with bringing in Blake dead or alive. He never played quite the roughneck character he does in this film than in any other work I can recall. Susan Clark plays the doctor on the Paiute reservation who has her views routinely ignored as she's mansplained on a regular basis. She also has her needs fulfilled by Redford as both are the best of what's out there in their corner of the world.

It's Blake and Ross who really capture your attention. I'm sure that William Shakespeare would have seen so readily the parallels between his timeless classic and what Blake and Ross are all about.

Beautifully filmed, the movie creates the same edge-of-your-seat tension to see the outcome as the book by Harry Lawton, and, indeed, the real events must have engendered.

Too bad Hollywood once again played with the truth. While much of the film appears to fairly closely follow history, with a few excusable abbreviations, two crucial incidents and Redford's character are Hollywood inventions. They add to the drama and mystery of the sad story, but considering most people know only the history they see on film, it's a shame to see the truth corrupted.

Blake is outstanding. Redford is uncomfortable trying on the cowboy persona at that early stage. Ross is completely unbelievable as an Indian.

The movie captures the essence of this turn-of-the-last-century western environment transitioning from horse & buggy to automobile, from cowboy to urbanite, from the remaining blend of Indian autonomy side-by-side with encroaching white man encroachment and ultimate domination.

The fact that it took several posses of 75+ men on horse, with supplies, days and nights of tracking to catch up with one Indian on foot without more than a rifle, a few shells and only what food he could scrounge, speaks volumes for the Indian-vs-white fight for survival and the tactics used.

Quietly intense, the movie is dramatic, captivating, and over-ridingly sad at the unavoidable outcome of the decidedly unbalanced "battle."

A drifting Paiute Indian in 1900s Southern California kills the father of his Indian girlfriend in self-defense; the couple escape into the desert, but a sheriff and his posse are on their trail. Critics were overly kind to this dull western in 1969; despite being based on fact, it has not aged well. The depiction of relations between the Indians and the white man has historical interest, but aside from Robert Blake as macho Willie Boy, these actors do not look comfortable in their roles. This may be Katharine Ross' most embarrassing hour, and Robert Redford as Sheriff Cooper is either squinting in the sun or looking at his boots. Abraham Polonsky's low-keyed direction is certainly no help. *1/2 from ****

I guess the cable companies have rediscovered this film in light of Robert Blake's legal woes. And I'm glad they did. It's an extraordinary example of filmmaking. Though not w/o its share of mistakes & weaknesses, they are all honestly come by.

The film covers several genres & comments upon them in interesting ways: it is a Western w. conventional themes (turned upside down & inside out) of Indian savages vs. white civilizers; it is a historical drama that chronicles the rise to power of the industry elites in late 19th century CA. (illustrated in the subplot of Pres. Taft's visit to the Riverside Inn). While this is a Western, it might be better termed an anti Western. Every character (including Blake's Indian) is weak, vacillating & morally changeable, which makes for a wonderfully complex tale.

Blakes dialogue gives us the film's title: "Well, at least they'll know that Willie Boy was here." He says this in responding to Katherine Ross' comment asking why he is willing to keep running, even though the whites will eventually trap & kill him. This scene conveys the film's elegaic tone about the death of the "romantic" West & the rise of the homogenized, white, industrial CA. that would arise in the 20th century. Willie is compelled to stand up for his own individuality even though in actuality few will mourn his passing & even fewer remember that "he was here." But Polonsky, the filmmaker, tells us that someone will indeed remember Willie beyond those tracking him down & exterminating him: Polonsky himself & the viewers of the film. Really cool stuff!

Another powerful layer of history is Abraham Polonsky's involvement. As a Hollywood 10 member, the script seems to comment indirectly on the Hollywood Blacklist era. Blake the hounded Indian is much like the renegades of the Hollywood 10. Willie Boy tries to stand up for the principle of honor & freedom in the face of insurmountable social odds. Yet, he is never seen as a romanticized or one sided character. Even Willie Boy is pig headed, monomaniacal and self-destructive.

I think Blake does a great job in this role. It makes you remember how good he could be in film roles (remember "In Cold Blood?") before "Baretta" came along. And it makes you weep for his recent descent into hell & wonder at what might have been if his life & career had taken diff. turns.

I didn't mind Katherine Ross as much as some viewers. She was much less bothersome & stereotypical than in some of her other roles ("The Graduate" & "Butch Cassidy"). During the film I was actually realizing how much I liked her in her role which surprised me.

I highly recommend this film.

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is directed by Abraham Polonsky who also adapts the screenplay from the novel Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt written by Harry Lawton. It stars Robert Redford, Robert Blake, Katharine Ross and Susan Clark. A Technicolor/Panavision production, it has music by Dave Grusin and cinematography by Conrad L. Hall.

"In the summer of 1909 a member of the oldest American minority, a Paiute Indian named Willie Boy, became the center of an extraordinary historical event. This is what happened in the deserts of California."

It's a very intense and captivating movie, sad even, it is well performed by the boys up top, beautifully photographed and boosted tonally by a haunting musical score that takes its heart from Jerry Goldsmith's score for Planet of the Apes, yet there's just something too Hollywood about it that stops it breaking through into a film worthy of the subject matter.

Problem in the main is that in trying to tune into the coolness of Robert Redford, and he is very smooth here, the focus of the film is more on Redford's Sheriff Cooper than it is Robert Blake's Willie Boy. Oh for sure the Willie Boy axis, as he goes on the run with his Indian girlfriend Lola (Ross unconvincing in race terms but emotionally impressive), is explored, but it's Cooper's movie and that just can't be right. The actual facts of the manhunt and its key areas have been cloaked in grey over the years, so the film makers stick rigidly to one of the stories told while dripping liberal messages in and out of the narrative. It's often a fascinating movie with its changing of the times pulse beat, but as much as I was glad I watched the picture, an overriding sense of unfulfillment still leaves me frustrated.

It was well received by the critics of the day, this in spite of director and stars not seeing eye to eye, and it is a decent movie with great values. But it's just not all that it could have been. 6.5/10

Loosely based on the true story of the West's last famous manhunt in 1909, a Chemehuevi-Paiute Indian named Willie Boy (Robert Blake) kills a man in self-defense and escapes into the desert wilderness with an Indian woman (Katharine Ross). They are pursued by a posse led by Sheriff Cooper (Robert Redford). Meanwhile, residents of the region are preparing for a visit from President Taft.

Redford was in his prime after his breakthrough success with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and the outstanding "Downhill Racer" (1969). "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" came out next and was critically acclaimed. While a modest hit, it failed to achieve the success of the other two films, especially "Butch Cassidy." It has since fallen into nigh obscurity and is almost never mentioned in 'Best Western' lists.

Along with "Hombre" (1967) and "Butch Cassidy," and soon-to-come Westerns like "The Missouri Breaks" (1976), "Willie Boy" ranks with the breakthrough 'modern' Westerns of the 60s-70s. The movie is polished and hardly seems to have dated after all these decades. The director was an admitted communist who was blacklisted by the McCarthy squad in the late 40s and "Willie Boy" was his big return to filmmaking.

The cast is great, also including the stunning Susan Clark as a patronizingly liberal white missionary, and the desert scenery is spectacular. But the first half is dull and the story doesn't perk up until the 50-minute mark. Still, this is a worthwhile late 60's Western if you like the style of the others noted.

What lowers my grade is the LIEberal rewriting of the historical facts in order to gel with the Indian-as-tragic-victim theme that was fashionable at the time. The real Willie Boy was in his mid-20s and kidnapped the 15 year-old Isoleta, his second time, after murdering her father in his sleep. Willie Boy used Isoleta as a pack animal and, when she couldn't walk any more, shot her in the back. Her clothes were shreds while her skin had swellings & bruises and there were cactus needles in her body. Her shoes were worn out and her feet bloodied.

Willie Boy ultimately committed suicide with his last bullet and his corpse was found after the part-Native posse chased him for eleven days and over 500 miles in the picturesque wasteland. In short, Willie Boy was a piece of sheet who executed two of his own; and yet this movie has the audacity to make him out to be tragic figure oppressed by righteous authorities. Why Sure!

The film runs 1 hour, 37 minutes and was shot in the deserts of S. Cal (Banning, Pioneertown, Joshua Tree, Riverside, Palm Springs, Whitewater and Lake Sherwood).

GRADE: C

Here is the true account of this story as told by posse member Law-man Ben de Crevecoeur in 1941.

Willie Boy was a 25 or 26 year old Paiute Indian. Isoleta Boniface was a 15 year old Paiute Indian girl. Isoleta's father, Old Mike Boniface was a Paiute Indian.

Willie Boy had an unrequited interest in Isoleta. Her father didn't like Willie Boy. Willie Boy kidnapped Isoleta the first time from the family's camp at Twenty-nine Palms, Ca. Her father found them, took her back and told Willie Boy that if he came near her again he would kill Willie Boy.

Some days later, after drinking with a White friend, Willie Boy went to the Gillman Ranch, near Banning Ca., where the Boniface family was working and crept up on Old Mike, his wife and their 7 children where they were sleeping under a Cottonwood tree. Willie Boy shot Old Mike in the head as he slept.

Willie Boy kidnapped Isoleta again and headed into the desert. He used her as a pack animal to carry whatever supplies he had. The posse, some of which were Paiute Indians, came upon a message scrawled in the dirt from Isoleta that read, "My heart is almost gone, I will be dead soon". When she couldn't go any further, Willie Boy shot her in the back and killed her.

Lawman Ben Crevecouer said, "The sight of that girl's body was something a person would want to forget, but couldn't. We came on it while it was still warm. Her clothes were just rags, she was welts and bruises all over, and there were cactus spines in her flesh. She had worn through her thin little shoes and her feet were raw and bloody".

The posse eventually discovered Willie Boy's body after chasing him for 11 days and 500 to 600 miles in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in Ca.. Willie Boy killed himself with his last bullet.

Willie Boy was just a scumbag who murdered two of his own people but ,of course, this director, Abe Polonsky, turns the story into another anti-White Hollywood propaganda film.

Info from interview of Ben de Crevecouer in "Desert Magazine", Nov. 1941.

Loosely Based On a True Story.

The Downbeat Tone and Leisure Pacing from a "Re-Born" and Former Blacklisted Abraham Polonsky, Doomed the Film that Would Be Over-Shadowed and Forgotten,

This "Intellectual" Thinking Man's Western,

Released the Same Year as "The Wild Bunch''. (Peckinpah's Bloody, Grit-Layered, Explosive Game-Changer),

and the Immensely Popular, Energetic, Well-Made, with Wide-Appeal, the "Hip" "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

This One Didn't Stand a Chance and was Quickly Swept Aside,

and Ignored, Making Way for the Aforementioned 2 Blockbusters to Pave the Way for the Decades to Come.

It is Beautifully Shot, with Outstanding Performances Across the Board,

Especially Robert Blake, and a Subdued Robert Redford. Kathryn Ross and Susan Clark, both Contributing to the Film and Help Expand Humanity,

in a Picture Filled with Expansive Landscapes and Culture Clash-Bigotry that Reveals the "Dark Side" of the "Human Condition".

You can Really FEEL Polonsky There.

Apart from the "Western Revival", that Crowded the Competition when the Film was Released that Relegated this Fine, but Not Great, Entry in the Genre to Obscurity.

Viewed Alone in Retrospect, it Seems Unfairly Dismissed and Over-Looked. Something it Didn't and Doesn't Deserve.

Give it a Try, or Another Try, Because it's Definitely...

Worth a Watch.

It's a Western set in 1909 in Banning, California. Willie Boy is a 27-year-old Paiute Native American living on society's edges. He has been in prison and is seen as a troublemaker. He is in love with Lola (Katharine Ross), the daughter of Old Mike (Mikel Angel), who disapproves of the relationship. Willie has run away once before with a willing Lola, and Old Mike threatens to kill him if he tries again.

The government superintendent of the reservation is Elizabeth Arnold (Susan Clark), a doctor and sometimes lover of the deputy sheriff, Cooper (Robert Redford). Willie Boy's and Lola's second attempt at flight ends in Old Mike's death. This death generates a search led by Cooper that ends similarly to historical events.

"Tell Them Willie Boy is Here" is a 1960s take on the mistreatment of Native Americans in the early 20th century. Press coverage of the manhunt is sensational. Superintendent Elizabeth Arnold is a sympathetic defender of the Paiute. Her character's relationship to Robert Redford's character is bizarre by 21st-century standards but fits the culture of the 1960s. Redford is a respectful sheriff.

The film is also interesting because Abraham Polonsky had been blacklisted for 20 years; this was his first film since 1948. The cinematography is spectacular; the script is more pedestrian. The incident deserves a modern upgrade.

I watched this movie thinking perhaps it was a joke. Katherine Ross certainly looked like a joke with her dark makeup, shiny and wavy wig, and her bland passive features. She always looks like she goes along to get along, with Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, and with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Sundance. Why didn't they hire an Indian woman? She looked ridiculous! Robert Blake looked okay, but why not hire a real Indian? The way they looked took away from the story. The Doctor looked too well bred and sophisticated. I don't criticize Redford because I've seen him in a lot of Westerns. The actual story was very sad, and I checked switch Wikipedia after the film was over. A sad story but poorly presented.

Abraham Polonski directed only five films, but two at least rated above average: FORCE OF EVIL (1948, featuring John Garfield), and TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE some 21 years later. Besides direction, one of its assets is the clear, competent cinematography by Conrad Hall.

The two Roberts (Blake and Redford) post performances that reflect high levels of physical fitness - in desert conditions to boot. Redford does it more quietly, Blake in style as a Paiute Indian.

The two ladies, Katharine Ross and Susan Clark, are exceedingly beautiful. The latter plays a medical doctor in 1909, when women doctors were a major rarity, especially in an Indian reserve. Ross is darkened to look Indian, and looks convincing as she runs alongside Willie Boy (Blake) but otherwise... not really. Her role seems unenviable, unless you understand the Paiute mindset and conduct in love.

Small parts by Barry Sullivan and John Vernon are effectively rendered, and dialogue, stunts and action are credible... but dividing narrative between what Willie Boy is doing to escape Redford, and what the latter does to catch Willie sadly makes the film rather uneven, and having a sequence involving the US President, even if the viewer never gets to see him, just seems overblown, with the white community on the verge of hysteria over a possible attack by Willie Boy on the head of state. It adds nothing to the film: I found it a needless distraction.

That said, WILLIE BOY has many positive points and deserves watching. 7/10.

Based on real life events, Abraham Polonsky's beautifully shot Western taps into the growing recognition of the plight of the Native Americans and how badly served they were served by Hollywood in movies pretty much since they first loaded up a camera. It's easy to imagine this film being shot twenty or thirty years earlier in a very different and certainly less sympathetic light.

The ill-starred Robert Blake plays the title role of a renegade young Paiute Native American who has returned to claim his girlfriend, Katherine Ross's Lola, as his wife. This is against the strong disapproval of the girl's father, but the couple are in love, dammit, and go on the run. We've already seen strong-minded and single-willed Willie in a pool-game encounter with a prejudiced white man and then when he kills the father in self-defence, the law, at least the white-man's law must take its course and so Robert Redford's mean and moody, Eastwood-like deputy sheriff Cooper takes with him a posse of greedy bounty-hunters, bar one youngster who's sympathetic to Willie-Boy, to hunt him down.

Cooper doesn't share the bloodthirstiness of his cohorts but he's the man with the badge of course and a lawman's gotta do what a lawman's gotta do so he hits the trail although he's probably the only one amongst them who wants to bring Willie-Boy back alive rather than dead. Cooper's no angel himself however as throughout the film, we see contrasts between his behaviour and his quarry. Willie-Boy sure is rough and ready with Lola at times, but it's clear that he loves her and tell her that he would kill or die for her. Cooper on the other hand is involved with the local female doctor played by Janet Smith, herself a reformer in favour of the Native American population, who he nonetheless treats coldheartedly, pretty much using her just for sex.

We see Cooper's band of blood-brothers slip away one by one leaving the inevitable showdown high up in the hills between the hunter and hunted, signing-off with a telling finishing line uttered with suitable pathos by Redford to bring to an aptly moribund conclusion a well-crafted, shot and acted feature which certainly has its moral compass pointing the right way.

This under-rated gem of an anti-Western deserved much better than it got. Abrahom Polonsky's return to film-making was swept under the carpet, as are so many heartfelt, thoughtful films (even in 1969). Robert Blake, with the exception of In Cold Blood and Electra Glide in Blue was never more determined or intense as Willie. Redford gives a subtle and layered performance. Katharine Ross is gorgeous but doesn't look like a Native American (her eyes are bluer than Paul Newman's).

An 8 out of 10. Best performance = Robert Blake with able support from Barry Sullivan, Susan Clark, and Charles McGraw. I'm sure this flick must have it's own cult following by now. If not, it should.

Just watched this 6/2021 on a free preview of Starz. Blake and Ross play Native Americans. I think with their makeup they have been "tinted" a little. I can't find any complaints about it but can you imagine how this would play out today? Not much of a movie review, is it? Remember, it was made 50 years ago and looks it.

Is it possible to admire an artist hugely while not liking his work? I think Abraham Polonsky is a hero who should be on stamps, and should have got the honorary Oscar when somebody else did. But. This is a short film that feels like a long one. It is an Allegory. Important. Serious. It therefore jettisons those flippant pleasures of the Western like action, character, violence. Compare to 'Eagle's Wing' to see how impoverished Polonsky's sense of landscape and nature is. In the era of Peckinpah and Leone, 'Willie Boy' cannot but look dated, feeling more like one of those naive 50s liberal Westerns where the Indians were played by minstrels. Without action, character or violence, of course.

I consider Robert Blake's performance in this movie to be one of his best, and this comes from someone who has always thought he was a fine actor. Robert Redford, too, shines here as the sheriff, and almost all the supporting cast keeps up with the two male leads.

Blake's character is a Paiute Indian who is the object of a manhunt which is sensationalized by the press because of its concurrence with a visit by President Taft. The sheriff is pressured into hunting down the Indian and the girl he loves but whose father has forbidden the match.

It's a good solid early-1900s Western with much better-than-average acting. But it's not so much an action film as it is a character study -- of Blake's character and, to a lesser degree, Redford's. It brings to life the racism and exploitation that white Europeans brought with them to America.