Imagine the life of Pancho Villa, retold by someone who had read a news article about him and acted by a cast of non-Mexicans and you'd get MGM's Viva Villa! In a departure for MGM, the film was actually shot on location in Mexico, which makes its lack of Mexican leading actors all the more jarring. Filmed away from MGM's assembly line in Culver City, the pricy film made $1.1 Million (about $54 Million today) at the box office, but its high cost only produced a razor thin profit for MGM.
