And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself

In 1923, Frank N. Thayer, now a studio executive, receives a letter delivered with a Virgin of Guadalupe medallion that unsettles him. The emblem stirs memories of a long-ago chapter in the Mexican Revolution. The moment pushes him to revisit the Villa project and the boundary between myth and memory.

Pancho Villa confronts funding shortages for his story while a hostile media landscape, fueled by Hearst campaigns, threatens to distort his image. Sam Drebben, Villa's Jewish-American lieutenant, begins to marshal interest from American film studios to tell his legend. He sees cinema as a tool to spread Villa’s narrative to broader audiences.

D. W. Griffith latches onto the idea and persuades Mutual Film Studios boss Harry Aitken to back a feature about Villa. The plan is to turn Villa’s exploits into a cinematic epic that could reach wide audiences. The project moves quickly to secure resources and talent.

Thayer is promoted from an errand boy to the project lead and travels to Mexico with a screened team of director, actors, producers, cameramen, and writers. The mission is to chronicle Villa’s deeds on screen with some distance. Tensions between creative control and historical truth begin to simmer.

To portray a younger Villa, a younger actor is cast to play the revolutionary, while Villa himself appears in a cameo as an older version. The meta-casting underscores the film’s blend of myth and history. The production juggles scenes that will shape the legend more than the documented facts.

Thayer develops a romance with Teddy Sampson, a rising star on the production whose warmth anchors the project. Their relationship adds personal stakes to the filming process. The romance also mirrors the film’s tensions between spectacle and truth.

As filming progresses, Villa questions the liberties taken in the script and director’s choices. Scriptwriters and directors push the drama to heighten effect, while Thayer and others face a moral dilemma about sanitizing violence for the screen. Villa agrees to participate despite concerns to help share his name.

Two young child soldiers are drafted by Villa to assist with editing, illustrating the blurring of reality and cinematic fantasy. The arrangement reveals the project’s gritty roots and the pragmatic, sometimes unsettling, methods used to craft memory. The crew recognizes they are shaping more than a film.

The production follows Villa’s army as they advance toward the Federal fortress of Torreón. Skirmishes erupt, a key assistant is lost, and the siege tests every member of the crew. The defenders eventually crumble under bombardment, and a grim act—Villa shooting a widow—shocks the crew and witnesses.

The Life of General Villa premieres in the United States to acclaim, yet the crew carries ambivalence about sanitizing violence and shaping a myth. Thayer’s own moral questions deepen as he contemplates what has been sacrificed for cinematic glory. The film’s triumph sits against a growing unease about memory and truth.

Thayer’s relationship with Teddy dissolves as the moral complexities of the project deepen. The romance recedes as the crew confronts the cost of their myth-making. The team disperses as the film’s initial arc closes with mixed feelings about the finished work.

Nine years pass and Thayer meets Sam Drebben again in a restaurant. He bears the scars of the era—an eye and an arm lost—and his perspective is colored by disillusionment with both politics and memory. He regrets not gifting Villa a copy of the film, a personal debt that gnaws at him.

A letter from Thayer’s surviving assistant—now grown and having Villa as his godfather—confirms that Villa remains revered by the Mexican people. The assistant’s memory reframes what the film meant to history, breathing new life into Thayer’s purpose. The revelation challenges Thayer to reexamine his film’s legacy.

Thayer travels back to Mexico to screen the film for a living audience, receiving a standing ovation during Villa’s closing speech. The moment reaffirms cinema’s power to revive historical memory and to redefine national legends. It demonstrates how performance can renew a nation’s connection to its past.

Villa is laid to rest in Mexico City as the film itself becomes a lost treasure of cinema. Thayer’s place in history is reduced to a footnote, yet the legend persists in memory and in the idea that film can shape a nation’s recollection. The film’s legacy lingers as a meditation on ambition, memory, and responsibility.