She Came to the Valley

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08/09/2013 This is a movie based on a book a Texas woman wrote about her Grandmother. It's got some good actors but they all forgot how to act in this movie. The props, sets, and costumes are all cheap. They did better on the old Forman Scottie TV adventures or the old Dr. Who shows. All the buildings were just two by four and one by eight pinewood sheds. All the filming was done outside or in the very cheap pinewood sets. The haircuts for the men were too long. It was filmed in the 1970's but why did they keep the 1970's haircuts for a story set in the 1910's. The story starts out in Oklahoma City right after statehood. That's nine years after the Spanish-American War. This story is set during the Mexican Revolution not the Spanish-American War. The woman the story is based on is married to a man who files a claim on a homestead in west Texas. He must have missed out on all the good homesteads in western Oklahoma to take a claim in southwest Texas. In the book he was a doctor but not in the movie. The first half of the movie is just depictions of the hardships they have to go through including the husband having his leg damaged in an accident in Oklahoma City. A cowboy comes to their homestead and helps them until he rides off with some Mexican bandits. He tells them he is from the Rio Grande valley near Mission, Texas. After giving up on ranching they sell their cattle and move by wagon to Mission, Texas. This is where the story loses its way. They start the movie with an attack by Mexicans on Mission, Texas in 1913. Then they do the rest of the movie as a flashback story starting in 1908 in Oklahoma City. We find out that the cowboy is a friend of Pancho Villa and has been smuggling guns to him. But Mission, Texas is in southern Texas near the eastern end of the Rio Grande. Pancho Villa was from north central Mexico south of New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. I never heard of Mission, Texas being burned by Mexicans in 1913. Just before the town is burned the woman's husband and the cowboy smuggle some Winchester rifles to Villa's men. In the real Mexican Revolution they were using bolt action rifles. On the way back they ambush and kill a German spy. The husband gets run over by the German's car and the cowboy is taken prisoner by the Mexican army. During the burning of the town the woman is taken to her husband's deathbed. After he dies she goes south to meet Pancho Villa. She convinces him to rescue the cowboy. There is a shootout with the Mexican Army and the cowboy is rescued. After they get back to the United States the cowboy goes to San Antonio to give a report to the U.S. Army on Pancho Villa and that's the end of the movie. During the movie there was an implied romantic rivalry between the cowboy and the husband. The husband also becomes a bitter drunk due to his bad leg but they really don't do a good job of bringing this out in the movie. This story had to be a fictionalized account of the raid on San Ygnacio, Texas by Mexicans in 1916. San Ygnacio is closer to Mission than any of the other raids that took place in Texas and New Mexico in 1916. In the movie they claimed it was the Mexican Army disguised as Villa's men that burned the town. The truth is no one knows who attacked San Ygnacio but Pancho Villa was over in New Mexico attacking Columbus, New Mexico. All the raids by Mexicans across the border in 1916 prompted President Wilson to send General Pershing and the U.S. Cavalry into Mexico to try to capture Pancho Villa. The Germans were interfering in the Mexican Revolution and offered to help the Mexican Government to invade the southwest United States. That was the real reason the U.S. declared war on Germany in 1917. See more Read all reviews

She Came to the Valley

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