What Might Have Been
Added 12/22/2009
Chuck Heston owed Columbia a film and Peckinpah (hot off RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY) was picked to helm what the studio intended to be an epic on the scale of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Such was not to be. Incredible problems, over runs and battles with the studio. Heston, despite on set problems with Peckinpah, set aside his salary to keep him on when the studio wanted to fire Peckinpah (in a making of featurette LQ Jones muses that Heston probably made the offer not believing the studio would take him up on it!). Real tension between Heston and Harris carries on to their on screen chemistry. You have many actors who would become staples in Peckinpah films: LQ Jones, Warren Oates, RG Armstrong, James Coburn, Slim Pickens, et al. Watch it with the new score. Easier to take than that stupid opening song I saw as a child when I saw this in the theatre. This is probably as close as possible to what Sam Peckinpah intended -- though we'll never know for sure. Still, vastly better than the cut up version Columbia threw out -- with disasterous results -- in 1965.
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Prelude to a Masterpiece
Added 8/18/2009
The extended version of Sam Peckinpah's flawed Civil War epic is an improvement over the muddled theatrical cut. However, "Major Dundee" should be viewed as a warm-up to the maverick filmmaker's 1969 masterpiece, "The Wild Bunch." Despite the undeniable brilliance of several individual sequences (such as the colorful Mexican fiesta), this overly ambitious production never coheres into a satisfying whole. Still, there is much to admire - including a fine ensemble cast headed by Charlton Heston and the impressive cinematography of Sam Leavitt. Even if Peckinpah had secured his creative autonomy, one senses that "Major Dundee" would remain a fascinating misfire.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Classic Peckinpah
Added 4/5/2009
Major Dundee is a must have for the collections of all lovers of the great American Western as seen by Sam Peckinpah.
Heston, Harris and Coburn are great as they almost always are. The story is well told with some light moments in it like the selection of volunteers. Although by todays standards the Indians are portrayed in a stylized sterotypical version common to the period when this movie was made, it's still a good yarn.
The political tensions and interplay with the French dominated country of Mexico during this period represents an interesting and often unkown (by Americans) under current to a classic Western story.
While not as gritty or bloody as some of his later stuff if you like a good Western and you like Peckinpah's work this is a must see.
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Underrated
Added 9/14/2008
Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is a near-great film that has a checkered history. The tale of its mangling by the studio that took it out of Peckinpah's hands is as well known as the butchery that accompanied Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons or Touch Of Evil, or Erich Von Stroheim's Greed. But, Columbia studio's restored 136 minute long DVD version of the film really shines. Yet, some critics have still damned the film as a `noble failure' or the like. This is too bad since the film is likely the most realistic and gritty Western ever made, and on the heels of Ride The High Country (1962) showed Peckinpah as a director with a bright future.
It is filled with great shots, a great lead performance by Charlton Heston as the lead character, Major Amos Dundee, and terrific supporting performances. Heston's Dundee is a great character, and may be Heston's role. Heston is the epitome of intelligent machismo, in a role that a John Wayne would have butchered, and that Kirk Douglas could never have gotten away with. Dundee is frustrated, but we never know why. Yes, he had been sentenced to a job as a prison warder, and we get hints of his past troubles. But, then we get this wonderful interlude, at the start of the third act of the film, where he falls in love with a Mexican prostitute, Melinche (Aurora Clavell), after being shot and diving into drink. Then he recovers, to face off against his main antagonist, and perseveres, and survives.
Despite critical claims that the film loses its way, this is not so. In fact, the fact that the film does not end in faux heroism is one of its virtues that makes it so relevant today, especially in light of its many parallels with the ongoing Iraq War. The only negatives the film really has are an obligatory- but thankfully brief, love angle forced upon Peckinpah by the studio, and a bit too hammy performance by Richard Harris as Dundee's main antagonist, a Confederate soldier and longtime rival of Dundee's, Captain Benjamin Tyreen, who is forced to accompany him on his quest to track down and kill an Apache band of murderers. Harris agrees, but only `until the Apache is taken or destroyed.' Harris's British accent is all wrong (even if the film implies he had a European education to explain it away by his stating, `Never underestimate the value of a European education'), as he is supposedly Irish, and his character is probably the least realistic of all the ones in the film- something more out of a swashbuckler film.
The screenplay was written by Harry Julian Fink, Oscar Saul, and Peckinpah, and it's terrific. The film also has a sepia tinge to it that is just about right for the film, and is glorious in its 2.35:1 aspect ratio.... Major Dundee, the film, also succeeds because of its realistic subplots, great acting, and some terific scenes, such as an early comic scene involving Dundee trying to teach Graham how to smoke, and the gory aftermath of a battle that shows much scarring, and ends with the men dying days after their wounds, not in glorious battle. Yet, Major Dundee, the character, succeeds because he is a great survivor, and one of Heston's greatest roles. Just a couple of years later, Heston would use many of the signature traits he developed in this role and apply them to his great role as Colonel George Taylor, in Planet Of The Apes, as well as his other classic sci fi characters in Soylent Green and The Omega Man. The film is an unintended classic and a near-great film, despite both the studio interference and Peckinpah's tendency to gild his filmic lilies. What it might have been without either of them- better or worse, is anyone's guess. What it is, however, needs no guess. Major Dundee is a hell of a good film, and far better than many other overrated Western classics.
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A personal revenge, miles away from home that has nothing to do with supposed ideals !
Added 8/4/2008
Amos Dundee (Charlton Heston) is an outlaw officer of the Army of the United States who - after the bloody massacre by Apache Indians - decides - against all the odds - to search and annihilate the Apache leader no matter how he has to spent, travel or sweat. So he breaks the rules and gathers a singular battalion, composed by drifters, drunks, renegades, Confederate prisoners and even a horse stealer. His personal revenge in what concerns the endless desire of revenge maybe compared with Ahbab in Moby Dick. He won't rest until his personal mission has been over over.
Of course, this won't be the sole problem, he will have to raffle other obstacles to get what he proposes himself. He dislikes his men under his command and many of them criticizes him his personal ambition masked of military ambiance. Major Dundee` s progressive demolishing process as human being might be seen in two clever sequences, the first when he is hurt by an enemy arrow and then when he is caught in the act by his supposed illusion (the always beautiful Senta Berger) with a sudden affair with a Mexican India.
Sam Peckinpah built step by step a memorable masterpiece, without leaving any single hole in the script. Many of these personages and similar situations would be reflected four years later in "The wild bunch" . But he personal confrontation between Heston and Harris is perhaps the main dramatic support all the way through. As we know the violence in Peckinpah is peerless. Just a few directors in the history of cinema have been capable to describe and even pulsate the violence as organic expression or vital necessity of the human nature without falling in gore category. Perhaps the only flaw has been the hasty final after the bloody encounter in the river with French lancers leaves us with a bitter taste, and one leaves the hall with a firm sensation that something happened in the edition hall.
Another remarkable highpoint in the career of this singular filmmaker. Don't miss it!
3 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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What Might Have Been
Added 12/22/2009
Chuck Heston owed Columbia a film and Peckinpah (hot off RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY) was picked to helm what the studio intended to be an epic on the scale of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Such was not to be. Incredible problems, over runs and battles with the studio. Heston, despite on set problems with Peckinpah, set aside his salary to keep him on when the studio wanted to fire Peckinpah (in a making of featurette LQ Jones muses that Heston probably made the offer not believing the studio would take him up on it!). Real tension between Heston and Harris carries on to their on screen chemistry. You have many actors who would become staples in Peckinpah films: LQ Jones, Warren Oates, RG Armstrong, James Coburn, Slim Pickens, et al. Watch it with the new score. Easier to take than that stupid opening song I saw as a child when I saw this in the theatre. This is probably as close as possible to what Sam Peckinpah intended -- though we'll never know for sure. Still, vastly better than the cut up version Columbia threw out -- with disasterous results -- in 1965.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Prelude to a Masterpiece
Added 8/18/2009
The extended version of Sam Peckinpah's flawed Civil War epic is an improvement over the muddled theatrical cut. However, "Major Dundee" should be viewed as a warm-up to the maverick filmmaker's 1969 masterpiece, "The Wild Bunch." Despite the undeniable brilliance of several individual sequences (such as the colorful Mexican fiesta), this overly ambitious production never coheres into a satisfying whole. Still, there is much to admire - including a fine ensemble cast headed by Charlton Heston and the impressive cinematography of Sam Leavitt. Even if Peckinpah had secured his creative autonomy, one senses that "Major Dundee" would remain a fascinating misfire.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Classic Peckinpah
Added 4/5/2009
Major Dundee is a must have for the collections of all lovers of the great American Western as seen by Sam Peckinpah.
Heston, Harris and Coburn are great as they almost always are. The story is well told with some light moments in it like the selection of volunteers. Although by todays standards the Indians are portrayed in a stylized sterotypical version common to the period when this movie was made, it's still a good yarn.
The political tensions and interplay with the French dominated country of Mexico during this period represents an interesting and often unkown (by Americans) under current to a classic Western story.
While not as gritty or bloody as some of his later stuff if you like a good Western and you like Peckinpah's work this is a must see.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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