And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself Page #6

Barefoot peasants who are

entitled to freedom...

only after they've been properly dressed

for the occasion.

It's a process of evolution.

It's the movie's turn to make truth

the first casualty of war.

- Is there a second?

- Well, if that's the first, who cares?

Why did he kill her, Jack?

So coldly, so brutally.

It's as though

he killed the whole Revolution.

You know what it is

to say to a whole country:

"Let me make everything that's wrong

right for you.

"Let me carry you all on my shoulders"?

Eventually you begin to resent the weight.

You'd never know that from the movie

I let it become.

Well, you'll find a way to live with yourself.

You'll find a way to live with Pancho, too.

You used each other, Frank.

Mutual and Villa.

Together you proved that the lens...

is a hell of a lot mightier than the sword.

Hey, sonny boy!

Sam Drebben.

My God.

Sit 'im here. Park it.

Yeah, careful, sweetheart.

She's got a bladder like a faucet.

Watch what you say.

She thinks I'm a paint salesman.

Yeah, right, Ma.

- ice cream.

- Okay, Ma.

Shades of Pancho Villa.

She's tougher, believe me.

Got too good a look at a Federale bayonet.

- You don't still work for him, do you?

- No, not since after the Revolution.

Funny guy, Pancho.

He gave me a letter of reference.

He said Moses should have used me

for a machine gun.

Wrote it with your pen, too.

He was pretty browned off with you guys.

He never did get to see that movie.

Jack Reed said that

we made him look so good...

that Washington held off the idea

of invading Mexico.

Be that as it may, you welshed on him.

I was there...

when you promised him

a print for the widows, remember?

- And the orphans, remember?

- Aitken was mad he broke the contract.

Like Aitken needed an excuse

to be full of sh*t.

Some revolution.

The new f***ers

are the same as the old f***ers.

Big guys up here still control

everything that's going on down there.

Both sides of the border still scared shitless

Pancho's going to start shooting again...

because the Revolution's turned sour.

You want my two cents,

for what they're worth?

Mexico would be a hell of a lot better off...

if God had taken his goddamn oil

and shoved it under Brooklyn.

I wish very much

that you had been in Baralf...

for the christening of my first-born:

Anastasio Francisco.

Named for my brother and for you.

I hope he will be proud to say one day...

that he is the godson of Pancho Villa.

At the christening party...

the General was very much

as the General always was.

Though some said later

he was more quiet, more thoughtful.

They say he had a premonition.

After giving my son

his medal of the Virgin of Guadalupe...

which many times over

he would say really belonged to you...

he started to drive back

to his hacienda grande...

with his secretary and two guards.

And then, in the center of Parral...

Some say the government

killed Pancho Villa.

Some say it was the gringos.

Some say it was both.

The General was dragged away

like an animal.

Even in death they are afraid of him.

He is without a grave. He has no tomb.

How will they remember him, Seor Frank?

How will the sons of Mexico

remember our Pancho Villa?

Following his assassination,

the name of Pancho Villa...

was stricken from all official records,

statues, monuments, even children's books.

When the government decided it was safe

to disinter his body...

it was discovered

that someone had stolen his head.

In 1976, after half a century,

the remains of his remains...

were laid to rest in Mexico City,

alongside other heroes of the Revolution.

Finally he'd been given the funeral

he'd always dreamed of.

As in the case of his head,

the film The Life Of General Villa...

has been lost to posterity.

If anything at all, Frank Thayer

remains just a footnote in history.

No complaints, it's not too bad

being a footnote to a legend.

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