Taglines: Who gives a d— about Indians?
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here movie storyline. Willie Boy, a young Paiute Indian, returns to his Banning, California, reservation in 1909 so that he may attend his tribe’s annual fiesta and resume his relationship with Lola, whose father has stood between them. When Willie attempts to arrange a midnight date with Lola, her father threatens to shoot him. Concurrently, easygoing Under-Sheriff Christopher Cooper, or “Coop,” comes into town to see Liz Arnold, a wealthy Bostonian who doubles as doctor and superintendent of the reservation.
Their relationship is tenuous: though Liz is sexually attracted to Coop, she regards him as her social and intellectual inferior and scorns his coarse manner. Willie meets Lola in the woods at midnight as planned, but their lovemaking is interrupted by the appearance of her father and brothers. Lola’s father is killed in the ensuing scuffle, and, according to tribal tradition, Lola becomes Willie’s wife. Liz, however, has other ambitions for Lola, and she insists that Coop apprehend the couple so that she can be returned to the reservation.
Though his sympathies are with the Indians, Coop reluctantly heads a posse of bloodthirsty ranchers, but Willie and Lola evade the group. As the pursuit through the Mojave Desert drags on, Coop abandons the posse in order to return to town so that he may serve as bodyguard to the visiting President Taft. In Coop’s absence, Willie picks off the pursuers’ horses and accidentally shoots Ray Calvert, a member of the posse. The hysterical fear of an Indian uprising and assassination attempt against the President sweeps the town, and Coop is forced to continue his pursuit.
The chase has left Lola so exhausted that she has become a liability to Willie, but she refuses to abandon him; and when the posse finds her dead body the following day, opinion is divided on whether she died by Willie’s hand or by her own. Coop soon traps Willie in the mountains, and a confrontation is forced. When the Indian raises his rifle, Coop shoots against his will, only to discover that Willie’s gun contains no bullets.
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is a 1969 Technicolor Western film based on the true story of a Chemehuevi-Paiute Indian named Willie Boy and his run-in with the law in 1909 in Banning, California, United States. The film was written and directed by the once blacklisted Abraham Polonsky, who, due to his blacklisting, had not directed a film since Force of Evil in 1948.
Source material for the film is Harry W. Lawton’s 1960 book, Tell Them Willie Boy is Here. As depicted in the movie, Willie Boy and Lola (her actual name was Carlota, though she was also called Isoleta and Lolita in various accounts) did run through the Morongo Valley. Carlota was found shot in the back in an area known as The Pipes in northwest Yucca Valley. She was either killed by Willie Boy or shot accidentally by a posse member. Willie Boy did ambush the posse at Ruby Mountain, killing several horses and accidentally wounding a posse member. He ended his ‘last stand’ by suicide 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″N 116°32′15″W. 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.
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969)
Directed by: Abraham Polonsky
Starring: Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Robert Blake, Susan Clark, Barry Sullivan, John Vernon, Charles Aidman, Charles McGraw, Shelly Novack, Robert Lipton, Lloyd Gough, Ned Romero
Screenplay by: Abraham Polonsky
Production Design by:
Cinematography by: Conrad L. Hall
Film Editing by: Melvin Shapiro
Costume Design by: Edith Head
Set Decoration by: Ruby R. Levitt, John McCarthy Jr.
Art Direction by: Henry Bumstead, Alexander Golitzen
Music by: Dave Grusin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: December 18, 1969
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