''The Life of General Villa'' (1914) is a silent

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

–

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

starring

Pancho Villa Francisco "Pancho" Villa (, Orozco rebelled in March 1912, both for Madero's continuing failure to enact land reform and because he felt insufficiently rewarded for his role in bringing the new president to power. At the request of Madero's c ...

as himself, shot on location during a civil war. The film incorporated both staged scenes and authentic live footage from real battles during the Mexican Revolution, around which the plot of the film revolves. The film was produced by D. W. Griffith and featured future director Raoul Walsh as the younger version of Villa. Currently the film is presumably

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

, with only unedited fragments and publicity stills known to exist. The making of the film and associated events were dramatized in the film ''

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself ''And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself'' is a 2003 American made-for-television western film for HBO in partnership with City Entertainment and starring Antonio Banderas as Pancho Villa, directed by Bruce Beresford, written by Larry Gelbart and ...

'' (2003) with Antonio Banderas starring as Villa and

Kyle Chandler Kyle Martin Chandler (born September 17, 1965) is an American actor. Making his screen acting debut in a 1988 television film, '' Quiet Victory: The Charlie Wedemeyer Story'', Chandler's first regular television role was in the ABC drama '' Ho ...

playing Walsh.

Production

Pancho Villa's reason for starring in the movie was financial as he needed funds to fight the Mexican Revolution. He eventually signed a contract with the

Mutual Film Corporation Mutual Film Corporation was an early American film conglomerate that produced some of Charlie Chaplin's greatest comedies. Founded in 1912, it was absorbed by Film Booking Offices of America, which evolved into RKO Pictures. Founding Mutual ...

where he received a $25,000 advance and was promised 50% of the profits from the film for agreeing to let the company shoot his battles in daylight, and for re-enacting them if more footage was needed. (The contract resides in a museum in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

at the Archivo Federico Gonzalez Garza, folio 3057.) Raoul Walsh wrote extensively about the experience in his autobiography ''Each Man in His Time'', describing Villa's charisma as well as noting that peasants would knock the teeth out of corpses with rocks in the wake of firing squads in order to harvest the gold fillings, which was captured on film and had the projectionists vomiting in the screening room back in Los Angeles. The following year, Walsh played

John Wilkes Booth John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth ...

in Griffith's epic ''

The Birth of a Nation ''The Birth of a Nation'', originally called ''The Clansman'', is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play ''The Clan ...

'' and directed the first gangster movie, '' Regeneration'', on location in the

Bowery The Bowery () is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north.Jackson, Kenneth L. ...

on the Lower East Side of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Cast

as himself * Raoul Walsh as Villa as a young man * Teddy Sampson as Villa's Sister * Irene Hunt as Villa's Sister * Walter Long as Federal Officer * W. E. Lawrence as Federal Officer *

Juano Hernández Juano G. "Juano" Hernández (July 19, 1896 – July 17, 1970) was a Puerto Rican stage and film actor who was a pioneer in the African American film industry. He made his silent picture debut in ''The Life of General Villa'', and talking pi ...

as Revolutionary Soldier

External links

* 1914 films 1910s war drama films American action drama films American war drama films American silent feature films American biographical drama films American black-and-white films Films about Pancho Villa Films shot in Mexico Mexican Revolution films Lost American films Mutual Film films 1914 lost films 1910s action drama films 1910s biographical drama films Lost action drama films 1914 drama films 1910s American films Silent American drama films Silent adventure films Silent war films {{bio-film-stub

Production

Cast

See also

External links