Main Cast: Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Robert Blake, Susan Clark, Barry Sullivan
Release Year: 1969
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
After being blacklisted from Hollywood for 21 years, writer/director Abraham Polonsky made a healthy comeback with Tell Them Willie Boy is Here. The title character, played by Robert Blake, is a Paiute Indian living in 1909 California. After several years in the White Man's world, Willie Boy returns to his reservation, hoping to renew his romance with tribeswoman Lola (Katherine Ross). Old Mike (Mike Angel), Lola's father, strongly disapproves of her relationship with Willie Boy and attacks the youth. Acting in self defense, Willie Boy kills Old Mike. Under tribal rules, Willie Boy is now permitted to claim Lola as his woman. But white lawman Christopher Cooper (Robert Redford) is forced to charge Willie Boy with murder. The Indian and his girl escape the reservation, pursued by the essentially decent Cooper and a less-than-decent crowd of white vigilantes. What begins as comparative minor incident, snowballs into a huge political crisis, with the bewildered but defiant Willie Boy as the catalyst. Tell Them Willie Boy is Here is distinguished by the fine performances of leading players Redford, Blake, Ross and Susan Clark, and by the haunting cinematography of Conrad Hall. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Most notable as Abe Polonsky's return to directing after two decades on the blacklist, it sadly lacks the brilliance of the earlier Force of Evil (1948) or his script for Body and Soul (1947). The tale of a young Paiute Indian (Robert Blake), whose killing of his lover's (Katherine Ross) father quickly grows into a minor political crisis, is intended as a ritualized tragedy of injustice with veiled allusions to McCarthy-ite witch hunts, but is so hamstrung by its cryptic plot and beautiful, yet murky compositions that its impact is severely diminished. The script unwisely buries its more compelling narrative line of clashing cultures to wander among a pair of wispily impenetrable romances. Still, the film is graced with four excellent performances: Robert Redford as the sheriff whose name, Cooper, is supposed to signal his essential decency; the much underrated Susan Clark, as the sympathetic Paiute reservation administrator; as well as Ross and an outstanding Blake. Despite the dimness of many night scenes, cameraman Conrad Hall makes the most of the region's striking terrain. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
John Vernon - Hacker; Lloyd Gough - Dexter; Charles Aidman - Benby; Charles McGraw - Wilson; Robert Lipton - Newcombe; Shelly Novack - Finney; Ned Romero - Tom; John Day - Sam Wood; Lee de Broux - Meathead; Steve Shemayne - Johnny Hyde; Jerry Velasco - Chino; Garry Walberg - Dr. Mills; Lou Frizzell - Station Agent; George Tyne - Le Marie; John Wheeler - Newman; Erik Holland - Digger; Wayne Sutherlin - Harry; Mikel Angel - Old Mike; Jerome Raphel - Salesman; Everett Creach - Fake Indian; Johnny Coons - Clerk; Stanley Torres - 1st Committee Man; Joseph C. Mandel - Reporters; Spencer Lyons - Cody; Kenneth Holzman - Reporter; John Bear Hudkins - 3rd Man
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is a movie released in 1969, based on the true story of a Paiute Indian named Willie Boy and his run-in with the law in 1909 in California.
The movie was written and directed by the once black-listed Abraham Polonsky. Because of his blacklisting, he had not directed a film since Force of Evil 21 years earlier in 1948.
Movie Plot
The film's story revolves around the Paiute Indian outlaw Willie Boy (Robert Blake) who escapes with his lover, Lola (Katharine Ross) after killing her father in self defense. According to tribal custom Willie can then claim Lola as his wife. According to the law, Deputy Sheriff Cooper (Robert Redford) is required to charge him with murder.
Willie Boy and Lola are hunted for several days by a posse led by Cooper. Willie manages to repel the posse’s advance when he ambushes them from the top of Ruby Mountain. He only tries to shoot their horses, but ends up accidentally killing a bounty hunter, resulting in another murder charge.
Days later, as the posse closes in, Lola dies by a gunshot wound to the chest. It is left deliberately ambiguous whether Lola shot herself in order to slow down the posse's advance or whether Willie killed her to keep her out of the posse's hands. Cooper is inclined to believe the latter and then goes off ahead of the posse to bring in Willie dead or alive.
As soon as Cooper catches up, he comes under fire from Willie who is positioned at the top of Ruby Mountain. Cooper narrowly avoids being shot on several occasions.
In the film's climax, Cooper maneuvers behind Willie and tells him he can turn around if he wants to, which he does. Willie then attempts to gun down Cooper, who beats him to the draw. Willie falls dead and tumbles down the hillside. Cooper picks up Willie Boy’s gun and finds that it wasn't even loaded, making it apparent that Willie committed suicide by cop to avoid capture. Shocked and ashamed, Cooper carries the slain outlaw the rest of the way down Ruby Mountain and delivers him to other Paiutes, who carry the corpse away and burn the remains.
Later confronted by the county sheriff, Cooper is told that the burning of Willie's body will ruin the people's chance to see Willie in the (now-dead) flesh, denying them the ability "to see something". Cooper retorts: "Tell them we're all out of souvenirs."
History
Source material for the film is Harry Lawton's 1960 book, Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt.
As depicted in the movie, Willie Boy and Lola did run through the Lucerne Valley, ending with their 'last stand' on the flanks of Ruby Mountain west of the current site of Landers, California.
Willie Boy's grave monument can be found at 34°17′30″N116°32′15″W / 34.29167°N 116.5375°W / 34.29167; -116.5375. The monument itself bears the inscription “The West’s Last Famous Manhunt”, alluding to the notion that this was the last effort of its type before the use of a posse was generally replaced by modern, 'fully' staffed and empowered law enforcement agencies.
Pictures of Willie Boy's monument and a map to the monument location can be found here.
