VILLA RIDES (1968)
Label: Signal One Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: 15 Cert.
Duration: 121 Minutes 57 Seconds
Audio: English PCM Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Buzz Kulik
Cast: Yul Brynner, Robert Mitchum, Grazia Buccella, Herbert Lom, Robert Viharo, Charles Bronson
Greedy Texas gunrunner Lee Arnold (Robert Mitchum, The Yakuza) makes a living running guns into Mexico for the benefit of the Mexican Army who are fighting the bandit turned freedom fighter Pancho Villa (Yul Brynnar, Westworld). Arnold doesn't take sides, he follows the money, but he is pulled into the thick of it when his bi-plane cracks a wheel on landing and is need of repair. He travels into a nearby village, whose people are largely sympathetic towards Pancho Villa, and there he meets a love interest by way of the lovely Fina (Maria Grazia Buccella, Love and Marriage). Fina's Villa supporting father is among several men from the village who are hung by the the Mexican troops who storm the city, just before Pancho Villa, along with his second-in-command Fierro (Charles Bronson, Hard Times) and their rebel forces drive the government forces from the city. Villa rounds up the surviving government soldiers into a corral, Arnold among them, and Fierro makes a game of shooting the soldiers, allowing them to attempt to escape before gunning them down. Pancho is intrigued by the presence of the American gun-runner and offers him the chance to live if he can make use of his plane to help overtake a Mexican military stronghold
Villa Rides! is based on the novel by Williams Douglas Lansford and adapted by Robert Towne (screenwriter of Chinatown) and Sam Peckinpah (writer/director of The Wild Bunch) for director Buzz Kulik (TV movie Bad Ronald), and it gets an all-star cast, including Herbert Lom (99 Women) as General Victoriano Huerta, but you never really get under the skin of Pancho Villa. Brynner's performance is a bit of a caricature, and Mitchum is quite flat in the role of the American gun-runner, only the Bronson has any spark of presence here to speak of.
The film does deliver some pretty action-packed large scale set-pieces though, scenes of the troop train being bombarded from the air, epic battle scenes with horses and men traversing river terrain bombarded with explosives and riddles with bullets, it delivers the spaghetti western action and then some, it's just too bad they couldn't have given more depth to the titular Villa. As is, this is a pretty entertaining historical action-epic, it just rings a bit hollow, but the impressive action/battle set pieces and period design are terrific and make for an entertaining watch,
Audio/Video: Villa Rides (1968) makes it's UK HD premiere on region-free Blu-ray from Signal One Entertainment in 1080p HD framed in 2.35:1 widescreen. This looks to be an older HD master to my eyes, the grain is not as finely resolved as one would like and there does appear to be some light filtering as well, but still has a thick appearance. Colors look true enough with the arid landscapes, dusty village, and bronzed skin tones looking true to intention, if a smidge muted. Audio comes by way of English PCM Mono with optional English subtitles, the track is solid, everything is clean and well-balanced, the fight scenes are good and loud and the score by Maurice Jarre (Dreamscape) sounds terrific.
This is a bare-bones release, no extra whatsoever. The single-disc release arrives in a clear Scanavo overlap keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork. The two artworks are identical, featuring the original illustrated movie poster, the only difference is the back cover is formatted slightly differently and one side doesn't have the ratings logo, but the spine and front cover are exactly the same so far as I can tell. The same artwork is also featured on the discs inside.
Screenshots from the Signal One Entertainment Blu-ray:
