University of Virginia Library

Unique Treatment
Of Man On The Run

By Carl Erickson
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Robert Blake And Katherine Ross

Star In "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" Now At The Paramount

After twenty-one years of
writing film scripts under various
pseudonyms. Abraham Polonsky
has returned to the cinema with
"Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here."
Polonsky directed "Fore Ol Evil"
in 1948 and in recent years the film
has been acclaimed as one of the
greatest films in modern American
cinema.

However, since that time,
Polonsky has remained in relative
seclusion as a result of Joseph
McCarthy's "red scare" tactics of
the early 1950's. Polonsky
remained a victim of blacklisting up
until 1968 when he began work on
"Willie Boy."

Political Uprising

"Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here"
deals with an incident which
occurred in 1909 in which an Indian
named Willie Boy kidnaps a young
Indian girl whom he is in love with
after killing her father. A posse
made up of white men and Indians
chase him without success until
President Taft arrives in a nearby
town. Upon his arrival, rumors
spread that Willie Boy is leading an
Indian uprising and plans to assassinate
the president.

Polonsky's treatment of the
situation is simple and at times
simplistic. He obviously considers
Willie Boy's situation to be analogous
to that of the blacks today. To
him, Willie Boy is a symbol of all
oppressed people who desire to be
left alone with their own culture
and lifestyle. Such lines as "Indians
were made for prison like white
men," and "Who cares about an
Indian?" are typical of the defeatist
attitude which Willie Boy holds and
which Polonsky considers to be a
characteristic of Negro thoughts
today. As a social commentary.
"Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" is
rather unoriginal and heavy handed.

However, "Willie Boy" provides
a unique and fascinating treatment
of "the man on the run" film. Here
again the attitude is defeatist. Willie
Boy and Polonsky accept the facts
of the chase and the inevitable
result in an almost detached way
and with no remorse. Polonsky
refuses to emphasize the horrors of
the inevitable web of fate as Fritz
Lang has done. Nor does he develop
his characters in such a way that it
is we the audience if not the
participants themselves who are
touched with regret at their inevitable
destiny as Truffaut and
Renoir have done. And, unlike
many directors, Polonsky does not
sensationalize the events at the cost
of banality.

No Emotionality

Polonsky portrays chaser and
chased, in this case, Robert
Redford and Robert Blake, as men
equipped with their own kind of
common sense and finally divorced
of any emotionality. His positioning
of the cameo behind Willie Boy
when he is shot frustrates any
audience which is accustomed to
the close up of the dying man,
gritting his teeth in agony, pleading
for help.

Sterile Environment

Polonsky's emphasis on the
sterile environment of the chase, his
aesthetically aloof camera positions,
and his almost non-emotional
characterizations rob us of any
emotional involvement

"Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here"
results in a conflict of interests.
Polonsky desires our committal to
Willie Boy, the symbol, but not to
Willie Boy the person. His success
in the latter and not in the former
gives indication that Polonsky's
future success lies in his flair for the
cinematic and not in his social
consciousness.