The problems director Sam Peckinpah had with the studio to get this film finished, edited and into theaters is legendary--with Peckinpah disowning the final product. The public, too, were less than enthusiastic about this rather lackluster final product. However, now out on DVD is a version of the film that is purported to be a "director's cut"--or at least as close as they can get to Peckinpah's vision for the film. In his defense, Peckinpah's been dead for a long time, so this is what they THINK he'd envisioned.
The film is about a crazed leader of a Union cavalry unit stationed near the Mexican border during the Civil War. A huge group of cavalry is wiped out in an Apache raid and those responsible took three kidnapped kids and skedaddled across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Major Dundee decides he must follow and destroy them even though he simply doesn't have enough men to do this AND guard the Confederate prisoners in the compound he's commanding. So, he enlists volunteers as well as Confederate soldiers willing to join his expeditionary force. The rag-tag unit idea is hard to believe (after all, the Confederates helping seemed silly), but the first 2/3 of the film worked pretty well and I was impressed.
However, towards the end of the film, the whole production seems to unravel a bit. Heston's character went from a driven but reasonable man to a whiny drunk with the least provocation--and this made no sense at all. It was as if there were some plot elements missing (which there might have been). Also, the repartee between Heston and Richard Harris seemed overly macho and tough to believe throughout the film, but here and at the very end it only got worse. In fact, the ending was pretty exciting (in two rather savage battles), but then the movie just stopped.....no epilogue, no real conclusion...and the words "the end" appeared as if from nowhere.
If this was Peckinpah's vision, then he needed glasses. If it wasn't, then I could understand all the dangling plot elements and silly characterizations. Overall, it is still an interesting film but you shouldn't expect greatness.
I have never understood how in spite of films like MAJOR DUNDEE and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA that Sam Peckinpah still has this aura about him as a director--often appearing on "Best Director" lists. He made some exceptional films, some very mediocre films and a few stinkers--but his overall body of work in films is very small--thanks mostly to his drug and alcohol dependence. This guy was NOT another Kurosawa, John Ford or Bergman--just a guy with a lot of potential that seldom reached it and in the end threw it all away.
FYI--If you watch this movie then Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH, you'll see many plot similarities. Although both films were set about fifty years apart, the civil wars in Mexico were both backdrops for the films (first with the forces of Benito Juárez against the imperialist forces of Maximillian and later during chaos following the rise of Zapata and Villa following the iron-fisted reign of Díaz).
The film is about a crazed leader of a Union cavalry unit stationed near the Mexican border during the Civil War. A huge group of cavalry is wiped out in an Apache raid and those responsible took three kidnapped kids and skedaddled across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Major Dundee decides he must follow and destroy them even though he simply doesn't have enough men to do this AND guard the Confederate prisoners in the compound he's commanding. So, he enlists volunteers as well as Confederate soldiers willing to join his expeditionary force. The rag-tag unit idea is hard to believe (after all, the Confederates helping seemed silly), but the first 2/3 of the film worked pretty well and I was impressed.
However, towards the end of the film, the whole production seems to unravel a bit. Heston's character went from a driven but reasonable man to a whiny drunk with the least provocation--and this made no sense at all. It was as if there were some plot elements missing (which there might have been). Also, the repartee between Heston and Richard Harris seemed overly macho and tough to believe throughout the film, but here and at the very end it only got worse. In fact, the ending was pretty exciting (in two rather savage battles), but then the movie just stopped.....no epilogue, no real conclusion...and the words "the end" appeared as if from nowhere.
If this was Peckinpah's vision, then he needed glasses. If it wasn't, then I could understand all the dangling plot elements and silly characterizations. Overall, it is still an interesting film but you shouldn't expect greatness.
I have never understood how in spite of films like MAJOR DUNDEE and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA that Sam Peckinpah still has this aura about him as a director--often appearing on "Best Director" lists. He made some exceptional films, some very mediocre films and a few stinkers--but his overall body of work in films is very small--thanks mostly to his drug and alcohol dependence. This guy was NOT another Kurosawa, John Ford or Bergman--just a guy with a lot of potential that seldom reached it and in the end threw it all away.
FYI--If you watch this movie then Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH, you'll see many plot similarities. Although both films were set about fifty years apart, the civil wars in Mexico were both backdrops for the films (first with the forces of Benito Juárez against the imperialist forces of Maximillian and later during chaos following the rise of Zapata and Villa following the iron-fisted reign of Díaz).