Edward James Olmos played the celebrated title character in the 1982 drama based on real-life events.
Congratulations and Felicidades to Edward James Olmos and everyone else associated with The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. The acclaimed 1982 Western drama was added Wednesday to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, an agency that annually selects up to 25 motion pictures at least 10 years old that are deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant and deserving of preservation.
Currently, there are 850 films in the registry. Among the dozens of notable Westerns previously chosen for inclusion: The Great Train Robbery, Stagecoach, Red River, High Noon, Shane, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven.
Originally produced for the PBS series American Playhouse before being screened at the prestigious Telluride Film Festival and given a theatrical release by Embassy Pictures, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez — now available for free streaming on The Roku Channel, Tubi and Freevee — was directed by Robert M. Young (Dominick and Eugene, One-Trick Pony), who co-wrote the screenplay with Victor Villaseñor.
Described by the National Film Registry as “one of the key feature films from the burgeoning 1980s Chicano film movement,” the drama was inspired by With His Pistol in His Hand, folklorist Américo Paredes’ acclaimed account of the real-life figure celebrated in El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez, a ballad from the borderlands of Texas and Mexico.
Gregorio Cortez, the National Film Registry noted, was “a poor Tejano farmer accused in 1901 of killing a sheriff who had shot Cortez’s brother during a poorly translated interrogation. A posse of some 600 Texas Rangers pursued Cortez for 11 days before his capture, as widespread newspaper accounts of the chase and subsequent trial spurred the creation of the ballad. Relying on the prodigious talents of director Robert M. Young, lead actor and co-producer Edward James Olmos, cinematographer Ray Villalobos and producer Moctesuma Esparza, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez employed narrative devices common to such classic films as Citizen Kane, Rashomon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance to tell its complicated story in a nonlinear fashion.”
