And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself

More, more, Mr. Walsh.

You got to kill them all.

The last thing in the world you'd want

is to be captured by those heathen redskins.

Rush to him, Miss Sampson.

Rush to your protector.

Seek the shelter of his manly arms.

True love, Adrian.

True love laced with heartrending,

devotional gratitude.

And cut.

Cut, everybody.

- Next setup, Charlie.

- Yes, Mr. Griffith.

Go get those horses.

I know you're freezing. We're all freezing.

There he is, Frank.

Ask him over, gently.

Very good, my dear. Very good, indeed.

Mr. Griffith, sir...

Mr. Aitken's in the car.

He'd like to have a word with you.

- Duffy, how are we with Mr. Walsh?

- Hello.

A bit higher than usual.

How about there?

Be more generous with the blood.

Lay it on thick.

He's over there, sir. Says that it's important.

When will Mr. Aitken understand

that when Griffith is filming...

nothing is of greater importance to Griffith?

Sorry, David,

but we need to move fast on this...

if you think it's worth moving at all.

Eli Morton in our Texas office...

went for some kind of press conference

over the border...

pulled together by this Pancho Villa fellow...

- Villa.

- The Pancho Villa?

Right. According to Eli...

Villa is offering exclusive rights

to any motion-picture company...

interested in filming

his revolutionary army...

- with the vision del norte...

- Del norte.

...in action against the federal forces of,

who he calls...

the despotic President of Mexico, Victorio...

- Victoriano Huerta.

- Huerta, right.

Villa's terms as follows.

He's asking for $25,000 in advance

against 20% of the profits.

- He wants the money in gold.

- Quite the horse trader.

He's supposed to be some kind of Injun

or something.

He's mestizo. It's a racial mix.

Where'd you get all that stuff?

Is it worth a shot? No story, no actors.

Just shooting an actual military scrap.

- Just that, and that alone.

- Just filming men at war?

Being allowed to place cameras

in the thick of battle?

This may prove as much a revolution

for motion pictures...

- as the one Villa is waging on the ground.

- Real death, real blood.

People will get sick to their stomachs

with that show.

Hold it a minute, Harry.

Give her your gloves, will you?

Excuse me.

- Miss Sampson.

- Hello.

I'm Frank Thayer.

I'm with the Mutual Company.

Mr. Griffith said that...

You're in charge of gloves, are you?

Harry, thousands of words could be used

to describe individual achievements.

But the historian's pen

over time will be no match...

for the image the moviemaker captures

in the eye of his camera.

who's never done a movie before.

There's not a day that passes...

when this guy is not featured

on the front pages of the world press.

The man is a star. And stars

are the mother's milk of box office.

You wouldn't consider going down there

and try getting us a better deal?

A bird hasn't been bought yet that

D. W. Griffith couldn't charm down a tree.

Be serious. If all I've got to do

is setting up the California studio...

Just how competent would you say he is?

You think he's ready

to do something useful?

- Who? Who are we talking about?

- Your nephew.

Who, Frank?

Anyone else bidding on the rights?

- Hand me those.

- Thanks.

Any other movie companies

showing an interest that you know of?

We got the inside track.

Money does a whole lot of talking

around here...

- and the heavier it is, the better it's heard.

- Right.

You gotta keep your wits about you

around here.

- Yes, sir.

- First, number one thing to remember:

When you meet him,

never look Villa straight in the eye.

You forget that,

you wake up deader than a doornail.

And making any sudden moves

around him...

that's another real good way

to get your scalp creased.

When do we actually meet? What's the plan?

Villa calls the shots.

Gotta work out how to slip over the border

and find out wherever he's hiding out.

We have to be smuggled into Mexico?

There ain't no "we" in that equation,

Mr. Thayer.

Eli Morton has got a wife and kids

to think about.

- That's not gunfire, is it?

- Step right this way, Mr. Thayer.

Let's get you boys a ringside seat

at the Revolution.

Come on up.

The chairs are in there. Come on, fellows.

Let's get a look.

Let's go up to the front, come on.

Let's go right up here. Excuse us for a sec.

Colonel, how're you doing?

Do you mind? Thanks.

These guys are from back East.

They've never seen... Thank you.

Come here, step right up.

There you go.

Thank you.

Feels almost like watching a show

from up here, doesn't it?

Well, it's a bit more than playacting, sir.

What you're watching is a dictatorship

in the throes of dying.

Yielding up one life at a time.

John Reed, Metropolitan magazine.

Frank Thayer, Mutual Film Company.

You're taking the bait, Mr. Thayer?

You're going to film the battle?

I'm going to try.

Have a peek at your picture show.

- It's my turn.

- Don't push.

Look at that. To your left.

Hope you don't have any stock

in Doheny Oil, Mr. Thayer.

Oh, God.

Shows you what Pancho Villa thinks

of Americans owning Mexican oil.

The bastard doesn't care

whose property he burns.

There he is.

There's your bloody Robin Hood of Mexico.

What's he doing?

He's only taken half the town.

- It's off to bed, fellows.

- Good night, Frank.

- Get some sleep.

- Yeah.

Wait. I've never been on a horse.

You will like it.

Come on.

He wants to know why the movies

sent him such a clown.

He wants to know was Charlie Chaplin

too busy to show up down here?

- He wants to know...

- Griffith wanted to come. He truly did.

Only, he's kind of involved right now.

And this guy's

just f***ing around down here, right?

He says he don't trust nobody

who don't look him straight in the eye.

I was told that he would kill a man

for doing that.

That's a pile of crap. They don't stop

telling stories about this guy.

- What's that all over your tie?

- It's my school emblem.

My college's.

To which college do you go?

Did, sir. Harvard in Boston.

S. That's the school

where you make presidents. S?

A few have attended, yes, sir.

One day...

Pancho Villa will send his son

to Boston, Harvard.

He says he's knocked out enough sons

to fill every college in America.

Is that the gold?

Cash would have been a whole lot lighter,

I can assure you.

The last person who tried to give him cash,

Pancho cleaned up his glasses with a bullet.

- Your contrato?

- Yes, sir. It's right here, sir.

Those are the glasses.

One for you, one for me.

Those actresses you work with,

they're like nurses, right?

They got to have it all the time, don't they?

I'm not sure that's really true.

Yeah, right. Like you're not

jazzing your brains out, are you?

What?

What's this 10% of the profits bullshit?

His cut's supposed to be 20% .

You lie to Pancho Villa,

you go back to Harvard in a box!

Sir, that is a mistake. Somebody must have

changed the figures before I had a chance...

It's just my pen.

El plumo, or whatever you call it.

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