Diagonaldi Very well executed

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

norakecer 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.

classicsoncall 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.

theowinthrop This was one of the westerns made in the 1960s and 1970s, including Ford's CHEYENNE AUTUMN and LITTLE BIG MAN which presented the westward expansion as the disaster it was to the Native Americans. Ford's film concentrated to the attempt of an entire tribe to flee to Canada to avoid being cooped up on a reservation. LITTLE BIG MAN looked at the long series of insults and thefts suffered by the Native Americans leading up to the Battle of the Little Big Horn (their great victory over the politically ambitious Custer - in this film - and the point where their doom got sealed). Those films occur in 1876 - 77. TELL THEM WILLY BOY WAS HERE occurs some three decades later (1909), and shows the hopelessness of their situation.The screenplay is not quite even. It is notable that the author of the original novel, Harry Lawton - who died a few weeks ago - was writing the script with director Abraham Polonsky. This may explain the uneven handling. Polonsky, who was a victim of the Hollywood Blacklist, was notable for his radical point of view (best shown in his 1947 John Garfield film FORCE OF EVIL). But he was an expert screenplay writer, and his view of the rights of Native Americans would be similar to those of Lawton. According to Lawton's obituaries he remained committed to Native American rights and culture throughout his life.Willy Boy (Robert Blake) kills a man who was bigoted and goaded him. He is pursued by a posse led by Robert Redford, which is determined to get the young man because of his background. Redford, a bit more fair minded, wants to just catch him to bring him to trial, but one gets the impression as the film continues how hopeless this hope is. It would be sort of like Henry Fonda being in charge of the lynch mob in THE OX-BOW INCIDENT to try to control their passions (and probably as unsuccessful).To confuse matters, the killing takes place near an inn that newly elected President William Howard Taft is visiting on a political trip. Taft's presence in the locale makes the newspaper reporters wonder if they are getting the full facts from the sheriff. Why so much intense searching for this Indian? Is it (as they are told) that he killed a local man and he is quite adept at hiding in the deserts of Utah? Or, is he part of a massive conspiracy of Indians planning to kill Taft? To us, knowing the actual incident, it seems ridiculous, but keep in mind that since 1865 three U.S. Presidents were assassinated for political reasons, the last (McKinley) in 1901. Also, while thirty three years since Little Big Horn, and nineteen since Wounded Knee, the possibility of an Indian uprising was not hard to dismiss (the great chief Geronimo died in 1905, shortly after attending Theodore Roosevelt's inauguration - we were that close in time to the period when he was on the warpath).The film goes to it's tragic conclusion - a long, hard chase to the death of a representative of a defeated people. But the final victory is Blake's. In the end Willy Boy becomes the legend of the Native American who would not surrender.

connie419 I consider Robert Blake's performance in this movie to be one of his best, and this comes from someone who has always thought he was a fine actor. Robert Redford, too, shines here as the sheriff, and almost all the supporting cast keeps up with the two male leads.Blake's character is a Paiute Indian who is the object of a manhunt which is sensationalized by the press because of its concurrence with a visit by President Taft. The sheriff is pressured into hunting down the Indian and the girl he loves but whose father has forbidden the match.It's a good solid early-1900s Western with much better-than-average acting. But it's not so much an action film as it is a character study -- of Blake's character and, to a lesser degree, Redford's. It brings to life the racism and exploitation that white Europeans brought with them to America.