Sam Peckinpah

[Mr. Arkadin]

Since cmvgor spoke of the trouble he was having at "that other place" maintaining a thread on SP, I figured we might start one here.

Feel free to discuss films, characters, etc. I'll kick it off with something I wrote awhile back:

Peckinpah was often thought of as gruesome and bloody, but in reality was one of the most humane studiers of the human condition. Although all his films are interesting, he produced three ligitimate masterpieces:

The Western: The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Noir: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

The War Film: Cross of Iron (1976)

Sam didn't just make movies within genres--he decimated them. The Wild Bunch for example closed a chapter on the simpler western and brought much deeper themes to a genre that at one time was considered light entertainment.

Alfredo is the harrowing journey of Warren Oates as Benny though a dark night of the soul. Called a loser, Benny banks on the theory that: "No one loses all the time!" only to find out the contrary.

When Sgt. Stiener in Cross of Iron is told that he cannot measure up to another officer in terms of class and depth he mentions Schubert and others who rose from poverty. His Captain replies: "We are talking about broad ideals--not individuals." to which Stiener replies: "but I am one--and so are you."

Peckinpah many times cut violence that he knew studio exectutives wanted to see because he thought it would harm his films. "If all I do is drive people out of the theater (with gore) then I've failed."

Sam was a driven indidvidual and his films celibrate the gift of life as well as death. For those who cannot see this, perhaps as Angel says: "That's because you have no eyes." And no heart.

[Lzcutter]

Arkadin,

I agree that Sam could be bloody and violent when the script called for it but he also did "Ride the High Country" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" two very unPeckinpah like films but two films that highlight the western code that Sam believed in.

David Wheddle's bio of Sam Peckinpah is a great read and very well researched, btw.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Very true Lz. Cable Hogue is a great film and Ride the High Country seemed to be a big turning point in his career. Both works feature stellar performances from great actors. Also, in seeing the uncut versions of films like Major Dundee you get a bigger sense of SP's perspective and where I once wrote this flim off, it has undergone a major re-evaluation in my thinking. I was also glad that TCM showed Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid awhile back.

Another recent book is The Films of Sam Peckinpah by Neil Fulwood. He also discusses Sam's work on The Rifleman and pretty much every film he has done. While there are countless essays on The Wild Bunch and Ride the High Country, finding analysis on Cross of Iron or some of his other films is much more difficult.

Sam was respected for those two films by most serious critics, but much of his other work has been overlooked. As I said, he was not all about blood and gore. In WB for example great distinction is shown between Angel's quiet village of simple folk and the townspeople of TX ("Five cents a glass--does anyone really believe that is the price of a drink?!"_) with their repressed lives and the Mexican bordertown which thrives on the edge of hedonism.

Sam was juxtaposing real life and love here between two extremes--which although many today embrace one side or the other--neither are vaild approaches to life. Sam's views of loyalty, life, and love like his characters have become outmoded dreams of the past. They have always been at the core of what he was trying to express. Unfortunately his successors never understood that. They just bought a bunch of blood squibs and thought they'd make a similar film.

[cmvgor]

To: All Refugees;

While I'm preparing my notes to submit something more substantial, I'd
like to post this challange. I claim that I know the best line to be found in
any Peckinpah movie. It is a speech given to Chill Wills in Pat Garrett
And Billy The Kid: "You just made me have a bowel movement in my
britches, Garrett. I ain't never gonna forgive you for that."

Anybody know any better ones? Any script?

[cmvgor]

Insomnia brought me the other (very early) morning face-to-face with
Convoy (1978) for the first time in years. This truckers-vs-cops saga takes on the characteristics of a western, under Peckinpa's hand.
As the semi tractor-trailers line up to dash into town and free a jailed friend, they they get side-by-side on flat prarie land, for all the world like
a calvary charge.

Returning members of Peckinpah's repeate players include Kris Kristofferson (Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch and Burt Young (The Killer Elite). Ali MacGraw
of The Getaway is also present in the performance that some claim
tanked her career.

Supposedly, Sheriff Borgnine gets his jollies harassing, arresting and abusing long-haul truckers that pass through his jurisdiction. Led by The
Rubber Duck (Kristofferson), some score of truckers set off on a convoy to harass the sheriff. { Yeah. All these hard-pressed businessmen under tremendous deadline and schedule pressures lay aside business and endanger their livelyhood to conduct a vendetta.} Scoop-hungry newsfolk
and politicians are soon dealing themselves in. There are some great stunts, explosions, action sequences, and confrontations, but in theme and
cohesive subject, this is a mishmosh. At the end, even the thwarted and
frustrated sheriff ends up roaring with laughter when he catches on that
the newshounds and politicians have been out-manouvered.

But, Lordamercy, can these truckers tear up a town!

[Mr. Arkadin]

I liked The Getaway. I know a lot people hated it, but it was a decent crime film. Straw Dogs was also an interesting work.

As far as interesting quotes, how about this one one from Cross of Iron:

"Just bring what you need to kill with."

[cmvgor]

Agreement on The Getaway. Liked it much better than the Baldwin
remake. That reference points up something no one had mentioned before: Steve McQueen worked twice for Peckinpah -- Getaway and Junior Bonner.

The Cross Of Iron quote -- right on the money. Very expressive of
its context.

[SSO Admins]

The book of The Getaway is well worth reading, as are all of Jim Thompson's novels. Several have been made into movies.

[cmvgor]

SAM PECKINPAH AND JUNE'S ACTOR OF THE MONTH

The director's mini-bio records that, in 1957, Ida Lupino found Peckinpah
sleeping in a shack behind her property, and hired him to work on her TV
series Mr. Adams And Eve. He paid her back in 1972 when he cast
her in Junior Bonner.

[dfordoom]

I liked The Getaway. I know a lot people hated it, but it was a decent crime film.

I liked The Getaway as well. Even with Ali McGraw! A very stylish film. A pity, though, that he dropped the remarkably cynical and delightfully twisted ending of the novel.

Junior Bonner was an interesting movie also. He had a knack for getting good performances out of Steve McQueen!

[Dewey1960]

Dfordoom wrote: "A pity, though, that he dropped the remarkably cynical and delightfully twisted ending of the novel."

It's always been difficult to successfully translate Jim Thompson to the screen, his writing being so provocatively unsettling and raw. And Peckinpah's THE GETAWAY is a ripe example of this. I don't know if you've ever seen the 1995 Richard Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino film FROM DUSK TIL DAWN, but it is nothing less than an homage to Jim Thompson's work in general and "The Getaway" in particular. The book's sensational ending (which Peckinpah mistakenly abandoned as you correctly pointed out) is cleverly incorporated into this admittedly over-the-top horror / crime thriller; it's insanely wild and very true to the spirit of what Thompson was trying to establish in "The Getaway." (FROM DUSK TIL DAWN also features a cameo by actor Michael Parks as a thick-headed Texas Ranger, cut very much in the mold of Lou Ford from "The Killer Inside Me.") It's an impressive film, and although it is obviously not a Jim Thompson story, it seems more like Thompson than most of the actual adaptations of the man's work. George Clooney, Tarantino (who wrote the screenplay), Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis all deliver strong performances.
And speaking of Thompson, if you've never seen the 1990 film AFTER DARK MY SWEET (with Jason Patric, Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern), I highly recommend it; it gets my vote as the best adapation of Jim Thompson to the screen.

[dfordoom]

I usually avoid anything with a Tarantino comection, but I may have to have a look for that one!

[cmvgor]

A REDISCOVERED TREASURE!

I had not mentioned this before because I thought I had lost it. Copied over it or something. Turned over a tape yesterday and there it was.
I copied it a couple of years ago off of Starz Encore when my cable contract was different. "Sam Peckinpah, Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade", a 90-minute special. Narrated by the whiskey-soaked voice
of Kris Kristofferson, using interviews from family, friends and people who
worked with and for him, it covered his life and career from his youth onward.

There is interest, and there are some laughs. An impish, white-maned
L.Q. Jones gives an account about the financing of 'Major Dundee' and
about Charlton Heston learning to keep his mouth shut. Strother Martin
was not interviewed (probably made after his death), but another interviewee QUOTES Martin with a line about Peckinpah being a sort of a
"dirty psychiatrist -- He digs into your brain with a scapel."

A screenwriter tells a very revealing story. He was given the title 'Bring
Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia', and a 10-page outline. Then he was given a very short deadline to produce a script. On an impulse, the
scripter gave the protagonist (who wound up being played by Warren
Oats) aspects of the director's personality. Peckinpah loved it and ran
with it. Like the Wild Bunch collected their pay and then blew everything
trying to rescue their friend, the Oates character collected his bounty and
stepped into a shootout with his employer's henchmen.

A central thread of this essay takes a thought from early in the director's
career -- a line given to Joel McCrea in 'Ride The High Country'. Urged to
steal the gold he's being paid to transport, he states he wants to be able
to "enter his house justified." Its felt that that's why Junior Bonner stayed
in Rodeo long after the championships and the big prizes are behind him --
to keep living the life. That's why the 'Convoy' truckers pull a raid on a
small town to get a pal out of jail. They enter their houses justified. The
director also seemingly tried to do the right things, tell his stories streight, and enter his own house justified, in his own lights.

Interested users with access to Starz can probably trace this down if interested.


[/u]

[Mr. Arkadin]

Very cool. I don't have Starz, but am enjoying your "play by play". I wish there were some place we could order some of these docs.

[cmvgor]

Very cool. I don't have Starz, but am enjoying your "play by play". I wish there were some place we could order some of these docs.

There probably is some way to trace down and acquire items like this special, but I'm not the one to approach about it. Mr.A, you can't SPIT
without hitting someone who knows more about this Internet stuff than I
do.

Another performer seen in clips and quoted a couple of times is R. G. Armstrong:
--Mariette Hartley's bible-thumping papa in Ride The High Country.
--Bible-thumping Deputy Bob Olinger in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid.
--Also had roles in Cable Hogue, Major Dundee and a Rifleman episode.
Describing the scene where Olinger is trying to force Billy to repent and renounce his lawless ways, Mr. Armstrong says the director lit into him so
viciously that he went back into the scene wanting to ram that shotgun down Kristofferson's throat. (This, of course, was the character who died
in the middle of the street, cut down by that selfsame shotgun with the shells loaded with dimes.)

Good times with Mr. P.