Texas Bandits: Real to Reel

by Mona D. Sizer

Citing the adage that "those who do not study history are condemned to get it from Hollywood," popular historian Mona Sizer profiles a dozen notorious Texas outlaws and how they have been portrayed on the Silver Screen.

From Pancho Villa - who was paid $25,000 by the Mutual Film Company to portray himself - to Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (portrayed by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty), Sizer separates fact from fancy in a fun, rollicking look at the bad guys of Texas Westerns.

Sidebars (How to Rob a Train, How to Hold Up a Stagecoach, and The Hollywood Posse) round out this delightful homage to actual and movie bandits alike.

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2004

About the author

Mona D. Sizer was a teacher, conference speaker and author of fiction and non-fiction works that included biography, history, poetry, memoir and short stories. A Valley native, Sizer was born and raised in Raymondville, Texas. She earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from Texas Woman's University. Starting her career as a teacher, Sizer transitioned to becoming a writer.

Sizer was the author of historical and contemporary romance novels set in the RGV under the pen name Deana James, histories and biographies for Taylor Trade Publishing, a self-published memoir, short stories and contributed to several anthologies.

Sizer was a charter member of the Romance Writers of America® (RWA), was a member of the Narciso Marquez International Poetry Society and a lifetime member of the writer’s group Valley Byliners.
(Source: Museum of South Texas History)

Mona Dean Sizer wrote historical romances for Zebra as Deana James and a few romances as Rachel Davis.

She passed away on February 17, 2022.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I was blown away with the writing style of Mona Sizer. I loved typeface she chose, too: clean and easy-to-read.

I was particularly skeptical of what her portrayal of Pancho Villa was going to be, because I was raised in Mexico and learned about it from their point of view. I had no idea he was funded by a film company who requested "that he conduct his battles between 9am to 4pm because of the light." (Page 5).

We knew he was a heroic sort of bandit, who secured guns and ammo for his cause, etc., and that he was a renowned womanizer but this contained so many coherent details--and excellent spelling. Only one mistake: she put Emiliano Zapato instead of Emiliano Zapata (on page 8), but then included Zapatistas in the same sentence so it was probably a computer glitch of self-check for spelling. Zapato means shoe, but Zapata is a last name.

What we remember most about Pancho Villa is the nursery rhyme that portrays him as having a woman "on each knee." When Mona Sizer mentions that he was married 26 times, I can believe it.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

While a historical review of Texas bandits and an anylytical review of the liberties Hollywood has taken with their lives in the name of entertainment would be fascinating, you're going to have to look somewhere else to find it. Sizer's scholarship, riddled with colorful supposition as it is, seems rather suspect (she interpolates "reimagined" Wanted posters into her text), and her "comparisions" are little more than a list of plot points from the films. (In one instance, I'm fairly certain she's recalling from memory a film she saw fifty years ago, as she states it was "no longer available from traditional sources" and that the lobby cards might be the only remaining proof it existed.) Sure it's good fun - trotting out big names like Jesse James, Belle Starr, and Bonnie & Clyde - but without footnotes and annotations, it's little more than another tale Texas tale.

[Lee C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Texas Bandits is not necessarily a bad book, just not a book for me. This book contains a lot of facts as stories about legendary Texas criminals like Poncho Villa and Bonnie and Clyde. If you enjoy non fiction books, especially historical, you will enjoy this book.