Willie Nelson read only two pages of William D. Wittliff's original screenplay before he declared "I want to be this guy." By "this guy," the celebrated country & western singer-songwriter-cum-movie star meant a gringo bandit in 1880s Mexico whose red beard has inspired the mythic nickname "Barbarosa." An independent book publisher whose childhood in Taft, Texas (where his mother ran the local telephone service) inspired his screenplay for Raggedy Man (1981), Wittliff became an in-demand Hollywood screenwriter after contributing to the script of the Francis Ford Coppola-produced The Black Stallion (1979). One of his next for-hire assignments was an ultimately still-born attempt to adapt Willie Nelson's 1975 concept album The Red-Headed Stranger as a star vehicle for Robert Redford. Fired from that gig (the film was later completed under different circumstances with Willie Nelson in the role), Wittliff was granted an audience with Nelson, who asked what other scripts he had kicking around. Barbarosa had been inspired by tales Wittliff was told as a child by his grandfather while growing up on a ranch in the hill country of Blanco, Texas. The outline of the story had come to him during a long and lonely drive from Austin to Dallas.
At the start of principal photography in September of 1980, Willie Nelson was far from being an established film star but he had one boot stuck in Hollywood's back door. Strong notices for his support of Robert Redford in The Electric Horseman (1979) had paved the way for a starring role in the semi-autobiographical Honeysuckle Rose (1980). That film was barely a month in theaters before the Barbarosa production crew set up camp in the west Texas backwater of Latijas (population: 12), a former desert trading post and headquarters for General "Black Jack" Pershing in his campaign against Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.
Australian director Schepisi had impressed producer Paul Lazarus at Cannes, where his 1978 historical film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith had played in competition. For his American filmmaking debut, Schepisi brought along his Jimmie Blacksmith cinematographer Ian Baker. Although locations were scouted in all eleven of the American southwest states, the Chicago-based cinematographer's union would allow Baker to work only in Texas. Adding clout to the modestly-budgeted production was Gary Busey, still hot from the success of The Buddy Holly Story (1978). Busey signed on not only to play Barbarosa's oafish outlaw mentee but as an uncredited producer to boot. Rounding out the cast were reliable Hollywood veteran Gilbert Roland and Mexican actress Isela Vega, from Sam Peckinpah's Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).
Shooting in such an effectively unreachable location (at the time it was purported to be the largest remote location ever chosen for an American film) required cast and crew to double and triple-up to share the available lodgings, which came without the creature comforts of air conditioning or telephones. Although summer had officially ended, temperatures in the high desert of Big Bend National Park remained punishing throughout the day and into the early evening. With precious little to do during their downtime, cast and crew indulged in more than their fair share of partying. (Alcohol-fueled excess may have been the cause of a late night automobile crash that claimed the lives of two technicians and a third female passenger.) The production stayed for four weeks in Latijas before decamping for the slightly more cosmopolitan Brackettville, Texas, where John Wayne had shot The Alamo (1960) some twenty years earlier. Other films to make use of "the Alamo Village" include John Ford's Two Rode Together (1961), Andrew V. McLaglen's Bandolero! (1968), Sammo Hung's Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997) and the television miniseries Centennial (1978) and Lonesome Dove (1989).
Producer: Paul N. Lazarus III
Director: Fred Schepisi
Screenplay: William D. Wittliff
Cinematography: Ian Baker
Art Direction: Michel Levesque
Music: Bruce Smeaton
Film Editing: David Ramirez, Don Zimmerman
Cast: Willie Nelson (Barbarosa), Gary Busey (Karl Westover), Isela Vega (Josephina), Gilbert Roland (Don Braulio), Danny De La Paz (Eduardo), Alma Martinez (Juanita), George Voskovec (Herman Pahmeyer), Sharon Compton (Hilda), Howland Chamberlain (Emil), Harry Caesar (Sims), Wolf Muser (Floyd), Kai Wulff (Otto).
C-90m. Letterboxed.
by Richard Harland Smith
Sources:
Willie: An Autobiography by Willie Nelson with Bud Shrake
Fred Schepisi interview by George Negus, George Negus Tonight
Fred Schepisi interview by Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters
Willie Nelson interview by Turk Pipkin, wwwPBS.org
Barbarosa production notes
