She Came to the Valley

I just watched this movie on one of those $1 DVDs you get near the checkout at WalMart. I guess it was worth a dollar, mainly because it was packaged with another movie that was much more enjoyable. Still, I'm not sorry I watched it, even though it was hard to sit through. It was an experience. I agree with most of the reviewers here that the cast was a good one, and they tried really hard to make the seemingly pointless material come alive. On a more positive note: the movie is an unusual Western that deals with some real, late nineteenth century-early twentieth century history that most Westerns don't portray. And I'll say this for it... the script is so artless it actually makes the story more believable in a quirky sort of way. It has a kind of Reality TV feel to it. A lot of Dean Stockwell and Ronee Blakeley's family life was hard to watch though, because you just knew something was bound to go wrong to mess up their happiness. And besides that, Stockwell's character gets a crippling load dropped on him, and later gets run over by a car. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

I first saw this thing several years ago on cable at 3 in the morning. One viewing of this dud will show you why it was on at 3 in the morning. Director Albert Band specialized in cheap Italian westerns in the '60s, and this has the look, feel and sound of one. Only the fact that it was shot in English in Texas, instead of in Italian in Spain, distinguishes it from the stinkers that Band put out back then. His filmmaking skill haven't improved, either. What this film actually looks like is a home movie on a slightly bigger-than-average budget (for a home movie, that is). For some reason Band was able to attract a pretty decent cast, but he doesn't do anything with them. Scott Glenn looks embarrassed, as well he should be, you get the feeling from his "performance" that he wishes he were somewhere else. Freddy Fender, while a good singer, overacts outrageously as Pancho Villa. Ronee Blakeley, another country singer, is a bit better as a pioneer woman caught up in the swirling atmosphere of the Texas/Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution early in this century. It's a good premise, but Band isn't good enough of a director, and the budget is much too low, to do anything interesting with it. A couple of haphazard gun fights and a few flimsy huts set on fire, are just about it for the "action" in the picture. There's a lot of talk, most of which has been said in countless westerns before it and a lot of which makes no sense at all, the photography is poor, the sound is awful, and it apparently was edited with hedge clippers. If you're a fan of Blakeley, Fender or Glenn, don't waste your time on this dud. If you're a western fan, don't waste your time on this dud. If you have seen every movie ever made in the history of mankind except this one, don't waste your time on this dud. Poor in all departments. Avoid it like the plague.

Well I am biased, my father is Klaus Eggers, one of the German bad guys. I thought the movie could be improved upon, but my dad was funny. While it is true that everyone in the valley was excited about the movie, it was obvious that the producers, director, and editors did not care quite enough.

Go dad!

The making of this film was a big deal to the local residents of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Based on the book of the same name by Cleo Dawson it caused quite a local stir when it came out. I remember going to see it and being greatly disappointed. My immediate reaction was that there must have been some sort of scam in which writers or producers or directors conspired to milk investment money out of over eager locals. I also suspected that the only place it was ever released in a theater was in South Texas. Another local interest movie was based on the singer Selena and was made up the coast in Corpus Christi. Obviously that movie had quite a different impact!

Director Albert Band co-wrote and produced a few good spaghetti westerns in the sixties. In the seventies he landed back on American shores with a thud in this misfire about turn of the century housewife Ronnee Blakeley, her long suffering crippled husband Dean Stockwell, and their old friend Scott Glenn, who runs guns for Pancho Villa, played by country singer Freddy Fender.

A decent cast tries hard but leaden pacing and a general lack of interesting developments sink this. In fact, the film goes on for nearly an hour, dwelling on Blakeley and Stockwell's dull domestic life, before anything even resembling a plot is hatched.

Once Pancho Villa enters the picture, you get to see just how embarrassingly naive Stockwell and Blakeley's characters are.

Cinematographer Daniel Pearl and Art Director Robert A. Burns were more successful a few years earlier in another regionally made film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre!