Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 25, 2019

Abraham Polonsky's "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" (1969) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include an exclusive audio commentary by actor/filmmaker Pat Healy and film historian Jim Healy and original trailers. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The posse

There is a short text that appears before the studio logo and informs that Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here was inspired by a true story. However, the film's director, Abraham Polonsky, who was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee because he was an outspoken communist with an active party membership, uses the story as a pretext to promote a wide variety of his political views. It is very unfortunate because their delivery is so direct that it actually ruins the credibility of a lot of the situations and characters that are part of it.

The early 1900s, California. A hot-blooded Paiute Indian who goes by the name of Willie Boy (Robert Blake) returns to the Morongo Indian reservation and immediately tells his girlfriend (Katharine Ross) that he intends to marry her with or without the approval of her white father (Mike Angel). However, not long after that the love birds are caught making love by the old man and a few of his relatives, and while trying to defend himself, Willie Boy kills him. Willie Boy and the girl then disappear into the night. The news quickly reaches the reservation’s superintendent, Dr. Elizabeth Arnold (Susan Clark), and she demands that sheriff Cooper (Robert Redford) organizes a posse, tracks down the fugitives, and brings them back. He reluctantly agrees and together with a few colorful trackers initiates what quickly becomes an exhausting and quite brutal manhunt.

Blake’s performance frequently has the type of edge that the entire film desperately needs in order to be taken seriously, but it is the one quality that is actually gradually made to appear out of sync with everything else. Indeed, Polonsky carefully shifts the focus of attention away from the ‘incident’ and then slowly begins to transform Willie Boy into a victim of an unjust social system. Unsurprisingly, as the trackers ride under the scorching Californian sun the film spends a great deal of time producing the necessary contrasts to make the transformation look as legit as possible.

Even without the politicization of the narrative, however, the film almost certainly would have remained difficult to defend because it apparently alters plenty of historical facts about the real Willie Boy and his deeds. For example, the young man apparently did kill his girlfriend’s father but it wasn’t in self-defense. Also, multiple reputable sources have revealed that his girlfriend did not die as the film shows. The final scene on the big rock where Cooper meets him is also fictional. (Arguably one of the most reputable sources on the subject remains Harry Lawton, who carefully researched these events and documented his findings in the novel Willie Boy a Desert Manhunt, which actually disproved a number of popular myths that that newspapers created. However, Lawton’s novel also became controversial, and eventually he was even accused of expressing hatred for Indians. But he took legal action and successfully forced the parties that made the accusation, James A. Sandos and Larry E. Burgess, to retract it).

Ultimately, the film is very much a missed opportunity because Polonsky had the right talent to work with and a proper budget to deliver something rather special. Indeed, a lot of the locations that were chosen in California are terrific and Conrad Hall’s frequently flawless lensing quite easily introduces that epic vibe that some of the era’s great westerns have. There is even a very good score by the prolific Dave Grusin (The Graduate, The Fabulous Baker Boys).

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Abraham Polonsky's Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from a remaster that was prepared by Universal Pictures. Unfortunately, it has all of the classic flaws that the studio's vault remasters have become famous for. Indeed, there are traces of some quite obvious filtering corrections that give the film an overall flat and very digital appearance. During darker/indoor footage, in particular, there are entire ranges of crucial nuances that are lost, and in some cases there is even obvious smearing (see screencapture #9). But even during daylight footage the visuals never convey the proper organic depth that they are supposed to have, and occasionally the fine delineation we expect to see on Blu-ray releases is basically lost (see screencapture #13). There is even some sort of light sharpening that further enhances the digital appearance that is mentioned above. Colors are stable, but saturation should be better and some nuances expanded. Image stability is very good. All in all, the film simply does not have the solid organic appearance that it needs to look impressive on Blu-ray. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

The audio must have been fully remastered because stability, clarity, and depth are very good. Dynamic balance is also excellent. To be honest, I don't think that there is much room for improvement, and if the future someone produces a new lossless track for this film, I don't think that there is will be a meaningful gap in quality.

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - actor/filmmaker Pat Healy and film historian Jim Healy spend a good deal of time addressing Harry Lawton's book and various other takes on the events that are supposedly recreated in Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, as well as the controversy that surrounded the real event and the era in which the film was made. There is also good information about Abraham Polonsky's career and blacklisting in Hollywood. The commentary was recorded exclusively for Kino Lorber.

• Trailers - trailers for other for Kino Lorber release.

• Cover - reversible cover.

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It seems like Tell Them Willie Boy is Here instantly places people that see it in two different camps. There are those that praise its supposed courage to tell a tragic story that reveals a lot about an unjust era and admire the stars that made it, and then there are those that recognize in it yet another attempt by Hollywood to rewrite history in a very particular way. To be honest, I am not surprised, but I position myself somewhere in the middle. I actually like a lot of what Robert Blake does in the film, but it is almost completely out of sync with the many political overtones that its creator channels through it. On the other hand, it is pretty obvious that the film plays loose with all kinds of different facts while it very carefully introduces many suspicious and ultimately artificial contrasts. So, while the end product isn't a massive disaster, it is definitely not a good film either. Given the talent that contributed to it, I think that it is one big missed opportunity. Kino Lorber's recent release is sourced from a very shaky remaster that was provided by Universal Pictures.