Wild Bunch

Director: Sam Peckinpah Sam Peckinpah

Overview

"If they move, kill 'em!" Beginning and ending with two of the bloodiest battles in screen history, Sam Peckinpah's classic revisionist Western ruthlessly takes apart the myths of the West. Released in the late '60s discord over Vietnam, in the wake of the controversial Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the brutal "spaghetti westerns" of Sergio Leone, The Wild Bunch polarized critics and audiences over its ferocious bloodshed. One side hailed it as a classic appropriately pitched to the violence and nihilism of the times, while the other reviled it as depraved. After a failed payroll robbery, the outlaw Bunch, led by aging Pike Bishop (William Holden) and including Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Angel (Jaime Sanchez), and Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson), heads for Mexico pursued by the gang of Pike's friend-turned-nemesis Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan). Ultimately caught between the corruption of railroad fat cat Harrigan (Albert Dekker) and federale general Mapache (Emilio Fernandez), and without a frontier for escape, the Bunch opts for a final Pyrrhic victory, striding purposefully to confront Mapache and avenge their friend Angel.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/13/2018
UPC:	0883929630790
Original Release:	1969
Rating:	R
Source:	Warner Home Video

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

William Holden	Pike
Ernest Borgnine	Dutch
Robert Ryan	Thornton
Edmond O'Brien	Sykes
Warren Oates	Lyle Gorch
Jaime Sanchez	Angel
Ben Johnson	Tector Gorch
Emilio Fernandez	Mapache
Strother Martin	Coffer
L.Q. Jones	T.C.
Albert Dekker	Harrigan
Bo Hopkins	Crazy Lee
Dub Taylor	Wainscoat
Paul Harper	Ross
Jorge Russek	Lt. Zamorra
Alfonso Arau	Herrera
Chano Urueta	Don José
Elsa Cardenas	Elsa
Bill Hart	Jess
Rayford Barnes	Buck
Sonia Amelio	Teresa
Aurora Clavel	Aurora
Enrique Lucero	Ignacio
Rene Dupeyron	Juan
Pedro Galvan	Benson
Fernando Wagner	Mohr
Margarito Luna	Luna

Technical Credits

Sam Peckinpah

Walon Green

Sam Peckinpah	Director,Screenwriter
Lucien Ballard	Cinematographer
Edward Carrere	Art Director
Clifford C. Coleman	Asst. Director
William Faralla	Production Manager
Phil Feldman	Producer
Jerry Fielding	Score Composer
Fred Gammon	Asst. Director
Walon Green	Original Story,Screenwriter
Albert S. Greenway	Makeup
Bud Hulburd	Special Effects
Lou Lombardo	Editor
Roy N. Sickner	Original Story
Jack Williams	Stunts

Editorial Reviews

Sam Peckinpah's elegiac, wildly revisionist western kicked up plenty of dust with its release in 1969, turning the cowboy flick into a kinetic, blood-splattered ballet. Sporting glorious performances by Ernest Borgnine and a remarkably vulnerable William Holden, The Wild Bunch follows a group of aging outlaws as they try to outride a posse led by a former member of the gang (Robert Ryan). As the film details the final days of men who have outlived their world -- it's 1913 and Model Ts are replacing horses -- it rushes forward by using the then-experimental technique of rapidly editing together slow-motion images. Blood flies visibly on each bullet impact, forcing audiences to consider the moral impact of violence by making them feel it on a visceral level; it was the antithesis of the safe movie violence of the Saturday matinees. Arguably Peckinpah's greatest film, The Wild Bunch changed the way in which action sequences are shot, and its influence can still be seen today in the work of such directors as John Woo, Walter Hill, and James Cameron.

Barnes & Noble - Ben Wolf

From the opening image of children happily watching fire ants kill a scorpion, Sam Peckinpah presents a relentlessly pessimistic view of frontier life in 1913 as it gives way to modernity; any sense of honor is strictly relative, and "civilization" means venal businessmen and mercenaries. The western's myth of "righteous" violence is literally blasted to pieces in the two battle sequences evocative of the 1968-69 carnage in Vietnam. In elaborately edited montages using different camera speeds and distances, Peckinpah and cinematographer Lucien Ballard show what it looks like when bullets hit flesh, drawing out moments of death amidst bloody chaos in a balletic yet repellent spectacle. The Wild Bunch eventually became a moderate hit, and it got Oscar nominations for Jerry Fielding's score and Walon Green's and Peckinpah's script. Unsatisfied with Peckinpah's 145-minute cut, Warner Bros. pulled the film after its debut and shaved 10 minutes of exposition but left the violence intact. The footage was fully restored in 1995. With its stunning technical finesse and uncompromising view of the West's bloody demise, The Wild Bunch remains one of the most powerful "last" westerns ever made.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola