Cuando ¡Viva Villa..! es la muerte

The prominent Mexican revolutionary general Pancho Villa has been a character in dozens of movies, both in Hollywood and abroad, played by everyone from Wallace Beery (1917 and 1934) to Yul Brynner (1968), Telly Savalas (1972), Hector Elizondo in a TV movie (1976), and Antonio Banderas, also in a TV movie (2003). But no one more than Pedro Armendariz, arguably Mexico's most famous actor, was more closely identified with the character. He first took the role in 1950. This was the third of his Villa films for Ismael Rodriguez, one of the most acclaimed directors in Mexican cinema, in which teachers, prisoners, farm hands and other villagers look back and tell stories of the life of the famous revolutionary and folk hero who lived from 1878 to 1923. Armendariz played the role once more in a 1960 television series. Born in Mexico City in 1912 around the time of Villa's revolution, Pedro Armendariz spent much of his early childhood in Laredo, Texas, after his family relocated there. Following his parents' deaths in 1921, he was taken by an uncle to California, where he eventually went to school to study business and journalism. After graduating in 1931, he returned to Mexico and went to work for a railroad company. The story goes that Mexican director Miguel Zacarías overheard him reciting Shakespeare's famous "To be or not to be" monologue from Hamlet to an American tourist in a cafeteria in Mexico City and immediately signed him for his next production. The country's film industry was then experiencing something of a boom period, and the good-looking Armendariz quickly became a popular actor, working steadily in top productions for the rest of his life and earning the moniker "the Clark Gable of Mexico." He made his Hollywood film debut in John Ford's The Fugitive (1947) and worked for the director twice more in quick succession: Fort Apache (1948) and Three Godfathers (1948) in which he was second-billed to John Wayne as one of the title characters. After this initial success stateside, he acted more frequently in his home land over the next decades, while making the occasional picture in Hollywood and Europe. Armendariz likely first encountered Rodriguez on El secreto del sacerdote (1941), which Rodriguez, not yet a director, had adapted from a story by Luis Leal Solares. He began his directing career two years later, becoming one of the guiding lights of the country's film industry. Today Rodriguez is considered one of the founders of contemporary Mexican cinema, along with Emilio Fernandez and Alejandro Galindo. Nominated numerous times for Mexico's most prestigious film trophy, the Ariel Award (and winner for Tizoc, 1957), Rodriguez was also nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Director for My Son, the Hero (1961). As he explained it himself, he and his fellow directors changed the face of Mexican cinema in the way they "tried to reveal the problems that affect Mexicans, our way of thinking, and the character that distinguishes us." Even in taking on a legendary historical figure like Pancho Villa, Rodriguez remained faithful to his original vision, revealing through the stories told by the common people in Cuando ¡Viva Villa..! es la muerte the essential nature of his country. Armendariz was only in his early 50s when he made his last film, playing Kerim Bey, the Turkish agent allied with James Bond in From Russia with Love (1963). During production, he was diagnosed with untreatable cancer, but he kept going in order to leave his family some money after his death. Director Terence Young rearranged the shooting schedule to get all of Kerim Bey's scenes done in one two-week segment, with the intention of completing some scenes himself in reverse shots over the character's shoulder. When the filming of Armendariz's segments was completed in May 1963, Young threw a going-away party for the actor. Armendariz and Bond creator Ian Fleming, himself seriously ill, spent much of the party discussing Armendariz's friend Ernest Hemingway, who had committed suicide not long before rather than face a lengthy terminal illness. A month later, gravely ill in his Los Angeles hospital room, Armendariz took a pistol from under his pillow and shot himself. Armendariz's son, Pedro Jr., also became an actor, debuting at the age of 26. Ismael Rodriguez directed him in two crime dramas: Reclusorio (1997) and Outside the Law (1998). He played Pancho Villa in the Jane Fonda-Gregory Peck vehicle Old Gringo (1989) and like his father appeared in a James Bond movie, as the president in Licence to Kill (1989). Director: Ismael Rodriguez Producers: Jose Luis Celis, Ismael Rodriguez Screenplay: Ismael Rodriguez, in collaboration with Rafael A. Perez, Jose Luis Celis, Vicente Orona, Jr., and Ricardo Garibay Cinematography: Rosalio Solano Editing: Fernando Martinez Production Design: Salvador Lozano, Jose Rodriguez Granada Cast: Pedro Armendariz (Pancho Villa), Alma Rosa Aguirre (La Adelita), Carlos Lopez Moctezuma (Fierro), Humberto Almazan (Luisito), Elda Peralta (Cecilia). C-85m. by Rob Nixon