claude humpkins Here is the true account of this story as told by posse member Law-man Ben de Crevecoeur in 1941.Willie Boy was a 25 or 26 year old Paiute Indian. Isoleta Boniface was a 15 year old Paiute Indian girl. Isoleta's father, Old Mike Boniface was a Paiute Indian.Willie Boy had an unrequited interest in Isoleta. Her father didn't like Willie Boy. Willie Boy kidnapped Isoleta the first time from the family's camp at Twenty-nine Palms, Ca. Her father found them, took her back and told Willie Boy that if he came near her again he would kill Willie Boy.Some days later, after drinking with a White friend, Willie Boy went to the Gillman Ranch, near Banning Ca., where the Boniface family was working and crept up on Old Mike, his wife and their 7 children where they were sleeping under a Cottonwood tree. Willie Boy shot Old Mike in the head as he slept.Willie Boy kidnapped Isoleta again and headed into the desert. He used her as a pack animal to carry whatever supplies he had. The posse, some of which were Paiute Indians, came upon a message scrawled in the dirt from Isoleta that read, "My heart is almost gone, I will be dead soon". When she couldn't go any further, Willie Boy shot her in the back and killed her.Lawman Ben Crevecouer said, "The sight of that girl's body was something a person would want to forget, but couldn't. We came on it while it was still warm. Her clothes were just rags, she was welts and bruises all over, and there were cactus spines in her flesh. She had worn through her thin little shoes and her feet were raw and bloody".The posse eventually discovered Willie Boy's body after chasing him for 11 days and 500 to 600 miles in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in Ca.. Willie Boy killed himself with his last bullet.Willie Boy was just a scumbag who murdered two of his own people but ,of course, this director, Abe Polonsky, turns the story into another anti-White Hollywood propaganda film.Info from interview of Ben de Crevecouer in "Desert Magazine", Nov. 1941.

Michael O'Keefe Spreading the gap between the white man and the American Native is TELL THEM WILLY BOY IS HERE. This is director Abraham Polonsky's first film in 21 years since his 'banishment'. Willy Boy, a Piute Indian(Robert Blake)kills a man in self-defense and becomes the subject of a manhunt in 1909 California. With him is his lover Lola(Katherine Ross)trying to stay one step ahead of a posse led by Deputy Sheriff 'Coop' Cooper(Robert Redford). Being a 'savage', the deck is stacked against Willy Boy...his accusers of course assuming his guilt.Talent shines in this sage brush drama. Redford and Blake are excellent. Ross is so easy on the eyes you forget she has talent. Other standouts in the cast: Susan Clark, Barry Sullivan and Charles McGraw. This may be thought of as a thinking man's western.

wb-11 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.

armhair An excellent, small, telling film, ahead of it's time. Well acted and directed, a taste too of turn of the century Southern California, with mention of Riverside, Morongo, Victorville, San Bernadino, etc. Blake is excellent and Redford is rough and empathetic. The final scene between the two of them has several solid images and powerfully evokes the situation and the environment.