John Chard

Muera Villa. The Treasure of Pancho Villa is directed by George Sherman and adapted to screenplay by Niven Busch from a story written by J. Robert Bren and Gladys Atwater. It stars Rory Calhoun, Gilbert Roland and Shelley Winters. Music is by Leith Stevens and cinematography by William Snyder. It's 1915, Mexico, and two adventurers are in the throes of revolutionary greed, loyalties and plain stubbornness... It's all rather dull, really, a film not without a good action quotient, yet it drags itself through the slumber with weak characterisations. Winters is shoehorned into the pic as a sort of love interest, but ultimately her character achieves nothing more than under developed dressage, while Calhoun and Roland are saddled with some dire passages of chatter that come off as weak willed time filler. There's some sturdy machismo on show, especially when Calhoun lets fly with his Lewis Machine Gun, the location photography at Morelos (Technicolor/SuperScope) engages the eyes, and the last hurrah battle excites, but this is one that quickly fades from memory, sadly. By this point even the buzzards have had enough... 5/10