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Author
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Topic: Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here
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Douglas Meltzer
Moderator
Posts: 4554
From: New York, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted March 01, 2010 10:43 PM
Incoherent edit makes for a disappointing digest.
Abraham Polonsky directed this socially conscious 1969 Universal film based on a true incident. The digest starts off with jump cuts of the original titles over a moving train. Willie Boy (Robert Blake), a Native American, returns to the reservation after some time away as a ranch foreman. Suddenly a man comes up to Willie and says that he’ll shoot him if he doesn’t stay away. What the digest doesn’t make clear is that Willie wants to renew his romance with Lola, and the man making the threat is her father. We cut to a pool hall where the local hustler lays down an open challenge for a quarter, nickel or penny (it is 1909, after all). Willie accepts the challenge but the hustler responds “Why don’t you get back to the reservation where you belong?” An angry Willie smashes a pool cue over the guy’s head. Deputy Sheriff Cooper (Robert Redford) is called in after Willie leaves and the battered hustler complains “That redskin tried to kill me”. The Sheriff replies “If he tried, you’d be dead.”
Willie and Lola (Katherine Ross) meet in the woods late that night. As they begin to make love, Lola’s father and brothers attack. Willie shoots and kills the father. This scene is very confusing in the digest, and we have no idea who it is that gets shot. Willie Boy and Lola are now on the run. A posse is after them, led by Sheriff Cooper.
Lola: Willie, are you going to kill them?
Willie Boy: If I have to.
Lola: What do you mean, "If you have to?"
Willie Boy: I mean if they keep comin'.
Lola: But they're white, Willie. They'll shoot forever.
Willie Boy: How long is that? Less than you think.
Lola: It's crazy, Willie! You can't win. You can't beat them, Willie, ever.
Willie Boy: Maybe... maybe. But they'll know I was here.
The pair arrives at Willie’s parents' abandoned village. That night Lola runs away from Willie. Willie yells after her “They’ll never get me and they’ll never get you. You want to run? Go ahead, run. Tell them Willie Boy is here.” Another badly edited, hard to follow scene.
The next day Cooper comes across Lola’s corpse. She’s been shot, and a pistol is lying next to her. The posse isn’t sure if Willie killed her or if she took her own life.
Cooper rides ahead of the posse and finds Willie in the mountains. Willie misses a long range shot. Cooper, now on foot, sneaks up behind Willie. He obviously wants to to take him alive, but Willie raises his rifle and Cooper shoots and kills him. When Cooper checks Willie Boy’s rifle, he discovers that it's empty. He carries Willie’s body down. Later, a posse member asks what happened to Willie’s body. Cooper says he gave it to the Indians for a ceremonial burning. The man becomes enraged. “We've got nothing to show. What the hell's the matter with you? Goddammit, Coop, people have got to see something!” Coop responds “Tell 'em we're all out of souvenirs.”
This is one digest that would have been greatly helped by a Columbia-type narrator (“Willie Boy is in love with Lola, but her father wants to keep them apart.”) There are too many plot points that go unexplained and there are moments the editing is so confusing that one wonders what just happened.
This print has some fade, but there are decent blues and blacks. It is on the grainy side, with slightly soft definition.
Doug
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I think there's room for just one more film.....
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