Watch Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here For Free

Why so much hype?

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Pretty Good

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

I love this film since the plot is so moving. This is really a love story between the boy and girl. However it is HOW their love is portrayed that makes the plot so strong. The white girl's father never approved of his daughter's love for the boy just because of his American Indian heritage! I believe the father died from his own stupidity because of his hatred against the boy. He had every right to defend himself from the father who couldn't help it that the boy fell in love with his daughter. Obviously love doesn't stop happening if both parties come from different races. All the father had to do was simply understand the boy's background and his culture as a proud American Indian and everything would have probably been fine. If he made the effort in trying to get along with the boy, none of these problems would have ensued.Anyways, as with any film, there needs to be a good plot in order for it to be a good story. So that's why I gave this one a 9 out of 10.

I do like this movie even though there are sometimes some weaknesses not that obvious. The film finely moves by cutting between the fugitives and their pursuers, sometimes enforcing clear contrast, occasionally suggesting direct or ironic similarity (for example, the sheriff and the lady doctor engage in mutually humiliating sexual combat; Willie Boy and his girl make love) by means of sound bridges and parallel visual compositions. The Director A.Polonsky uses the wide screen as space to be meaningfully filled, and one is aware of carefully considered effect, in particular in the desert landscape, to a degree quite unusual in movies those days. Polonsky's messages ; tied to the white-Indian conflict, and they are delivered in a script that is not dialog so much as a series of one-line monologues, to which characters may react but almost never effectively respond. With a moral victory or defeat registered every few minutes, the film is sometimes quite in danger of mistaking text for texture. Lucklily, the danger is most of the time avoided. The movie lives most brilliantly on a third level, not unrelated to the action or the allegory, but much deeper, more mysterious, more fully felt. Let's not forget it is mainly a chase movie, concerned with clues and tracks, all signs must be read. And because the film focused on questions of personal identity, all signs are even more relevant. But the nature of the signs changes in the course of the movie, becoming always more intimate, elusive, meaningful, impenetrable. Near the end, these signs include a scarecrow, a hand print, a dead girl's body,a ritual fire—images, in context, of exceptional resonance. The four principal actors are excellent. Robert Redford as Sheriff Cooper "Coop"(pretty as ever and gives a fine performance) and Robert Blake (very convincing as Willie Boy) meet physically only twice during the film, but they form a superb ensemble. Susan Clark as Dr Arnold brings charm and humanity to a schematized and sometimes melodramatic role. Finally, Katherine Ross as Lola, whose character is the least accessible of all, suffers and finally submits without giving in to pathos or easy stylization. In short, a film to be seen with a careful attention.

It was curious to me that 'Willie Boy' came out the same year that "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" did. Redford looks so much younger here; it must have been the mustache as The Kid. Curiously, he had a similar scene here with Susan Clark as Sundance did with Katharine Ross, a kind of surprise bedroom attack that was used as misdirection before the true relationships became known.Robert Blake does a convincing job as Willie Boy, on the run from the law with his 'captured wife' after killing her father in self defense. The film offers varying degrees of the racial divides and tensions between whites and Native Americans during turn of the century America. Sheriff Chris Cooper (Redford) treads that line carefully, as he knows he must bring Willie Boy to justice, but is keenly aware that it wouldn't take much for his search party to turn into a lynch mob. All the while, one wonders how the final confrontation might take place, knowing that Willie Boy is not the type to go down without a fight. The prelude to that showdown is perhaps even more of a shocker, as Willie's girl Lola commits the ultimate sacrifice so her man has a better chance of escaping.I haven't seen Robert Blake in a lot of films besides this and "In Cold Blood", though I was a regular viewer of 'Baretta'. I liked that show, which had a reasonably authentic 'street' feel to it back in the Seventies. I often wondered why Blake never broke out to greater mainstream success until I saw him once on a late night talk show. His entire stint consisted of a rambling rant on government conspiracies and assorted complaints against authority, and he came across like a nut case. It's sad that he wound up at the center of his wife's murder mystery in recent years, a far cry from the once cute kid who graced the screen with the Little Rascals and as Red Ryder's sidekick.

This is a film that tries too hard to be 'worthy', convinced that it conveys some deep message about the culpability of the White Men who colonised the American West at the expense of the Native American Indians. But, as the Haliwell's film guide puts it, it ends up being 'boringly predictable', with its fashionable downbeat ending and cast of bigoted and unsympathetic characters mistreating each other and creating a situation that will inevitably only lead to tragedy. The actors are all fine, the photography is at times excellent, but we are not made to feel for the characters- we can see the outcome way before it happens. Thus, the final confrontation between Sheriff Coop and Willy Boy had no suspense factor for me- and I didn't care when either he or the Katharine Ross character (no, she did NOT look like an Indian!) died. A much better western that is'revisionist' in its attitude to the Native Americans are 'Little Big Man'. Watch that instead.