Major Dundee
1965 Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Synopsis
During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.
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Sam Peckinpah is one of my favourite directors and even though he was fired from this movie after clashes with the studio and Charlton Heston this remains a misunderstood gem of a film.
Basically this is the story of a glory-hungry officer who follows a renegade Apache Indian and his cohorts across the border and into Mexico during The Civil War.Seeking revenge after the slaughter of cavalry officers and homesteaders he is intent on rescuing some young boys taken prisoner by the Indians. Aided by confederate prisoners of war that include his former childhood friend Richard Harris as a southern gentlemen, he has a distinct hatred for the infamous Major Dundee. Sparring regularly the two have their own personal score… -
I rather imagine that this could have been a really good story - set during the American civil war, Major Dundee, who has been 'demoted' and put in charge of a prison camp raises a ragtaggle army of undesirables to rescue young boys captured during an Apache massacre. And then the story goes off track and meanders like a lazy river through subplots that add nothing to the film and turn it from the story it could have been into a ho hum western.
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Peckinpah's folly is a fascinating failure. His attempt to direct a western LAWRENCE OF ARABIA became a logistical nightmare, marred by on-set clashes, shortened shooting schedules, meddling producers, and a severe studio cut that severely devalued the integrity of the film. Restored and re-released in 2005 with 15 minutes of reintegrated footage, MAJOR DUNDEE remains a tarnished work, but a grand spectacle nonetheless, with some fine work by Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as a Union and Confederate commanders forced to work together. Peckinpah would learn from his mistakes by the time he made THE WILD BUNCH several years later.
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In the end, the fact that I wasn't watching the 2005 restored version probably doesn't matter much.
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too much
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An officer in charge of a prison camp goes after a band of rogue indians with an army of criminals and Confederate prisoners. Not as good as some of Pekinpah's other films.
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This is the first movie in my Sam Peckinpah Manly Mans films season. I've been spending the recent weeks watching Alan Rickman films, which have contained way too much in the way of emotions and feelings. The only feeling I like is the feeling of my fist against another man's jaw. Hence, a Peckinpah season.
Major Dundee contains a lot of manliness. Charlton Heston, gruff and unshaven leads a patrol of misfits into the wilds of Mexico to pursue a band of heinous Apache killers. Through various acts of manliness he assembles a the rag-tag group that will follow his orders. Including stiff-upper-lipped supposed Southern gentleman Richard Harris, a lieutenant with OCD and a love of artillery in Jim Hutton…
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I rather imagine that this could have been a really good story - set during the American civil war, Major Dundee, who has been 'demoted' and put in charge of a prison camp raises a ragtaggle army of undesirables to rescue young boys captured during an Apache massacre. And then the story goes off track and meanders like a lazy river through subplots that add nothing to the film and turn it from the story it could have been into a ho hum western.
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Sam Peckinpah's first big budget movie, famously taken away from him and shortened. This is the restored version and... well, I'm not surprised it was cut. Charlton Heston is a driven Union officer who puts together a regiment of volunteers - including Confederate prisoners - to hunt down a marauding Apache. This compelling plot is then put aside for most of the two and a quarter hour running time.
It's possible to see Peckinpah sketching out the driving themes of the rest of his career, and it is arguably this movie that threw down the gauntlet to all other revisionist Westerns that it was time to get serious or go home. The plot meanders away from its Apache Macguffin, but…
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An almost classic. Even the restored extended cut feels incomplete, as though we're missing a bunch of scenes ... yet what there is of it (and that still exceeds two hours) represents Peckinpah at the very height of the powers he would finally realise on screen come "The Wild Bunch", and so in that regard this is required viewing.
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Sam Peckinpah is one of my favourite directors and even though he was fired from this movie after clashes with the studio and Charlton Heston this remains a misunderstood gem of a film.
Basically this is the story of a glory-hungry officer who follows a renegade Apache Indian and his cohorts across the border and into Mexico during The Civil War.Seeking revenge after the slaughter of cavalry officers and homesteaders he is intent on rescuing some young boys taken prisoner by the Indians. Aided by confederate prisoners of war that include his former childhood friend Richard Harris as a southern gentlemen, he has a distinct hatred for the infamous Major Dundee. Sparring regularly the two have their own personal score…