The film as history stinks, but it featured some high-line actors of the day (Blake, Katherine Ross, Robert Redford) largely because its twisted plot line appealed to the Hollywood elite. I recall from one of the 1969-era ads for the film--"Willie was a bad Indian--the white man said so....." Yeah, right. I saw the film at age 14 (in 1969, in the theater) and knew from family and area history that the film's viewpoint was sappy nonsense. There was a clash of cultures over the incident, some hints of that still remain today. Willie was Paiute, Mike and Lolita were Chemehuevi. Marriage by capture was de rigeur by Paiute standards; by their lights, Mike the father was outta line for interfering. Chemehuevi and Anglo thinking differed, markedly. But Chemehuevis did not want white law to decide the issues, it was a matter for the involved families to work out. Right from the git-go, the makings for a cluster-BLANK were lined up and ready, and did not disappoint in those respects.
We know whose law held sway in 1909. Lawton's book goes into the local and national politics that influenced the flow of events during this chase of some 500 miles over several days. A lot of people's agendas, ideas, and dreams went south as a result of this occurrence. The book is well done, and presents a historian's viewpoint of the dying gasps of the Western Myth just as the modern condition of Southern California was taking its first breaths.