Villa Rides! (1968)
VILLA RIDES How Peckinpah discovered his Bunch Villa Rides is set in revolutionary Mexico and stars Yul Brynner as Pancho Villa. To western fans it's best known as the movie that was not directed by Sam Peckinpah. He had written the original script and was also set to direct, but he was fired after he had clashed with Brynner about his portrayal of Villa. Peckinpah was asked, by producer Ted Richmond, to adapt a Pancho Villa biography by William Douglas Lansford; he was asked to add an American character who got involved in the Mexican revolution because American audiences wouldn’t be interested in an ‘all Mexican’ action movie. Peckinpah first thought of a character like Ambrose Bierce , the journalist and author who had crossed the border to join Villa, but then discovered, while doing some historic research, that Villa had more than a hundred "Yanqui Soldados" riding with him, some of them idealists, most others mercenaries, outlaws or cowboys looking for a new
